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THE 


WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


WITH REFERENCE TO SCEPTICAL OBJECTIONS 


BY 
J H’ McILVAINE 


THIS ANCIENT AND VENERABLE RECORD CONTAINS THE PROFOUNDEST 
AND LOFTIEST WISDOM AND PRESENTS THOSE RESULTS TO WHICH ALL 
PHILOSOPHY MUST AT LAST RETURN 

FICHTE 


NEW YORK 
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 
1885 


CoPpyRIGHT BY 
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 
1883 


PHILADELPHIA 
GRANT, FAIRES & RODGERS 


Yi weeswyere * 


CONTENTS 


Tryp CREATION OF THE WORLD .....i-+ se eeceeeceee ak 
eR ATCT COSMO ONT Econ he ene ee ete 6 Bae eth 


PORT ATIONT OR: MAN corsets icc d pce en ap ain wee, ters V0) esis 55 


IV 


THE DUPLEX NATURE OF MAN IN THE IMAGE OF GOD .... 87 


NV 


THE TEMPTATION IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN. .....+...- 99 


VI 
EL TAIN ATc SEN OMe tease eee bie ea aad eo ee Se gx ee ba hee 


RUUD EN OPEL ed a er na ena gh te ae ce ell ae Chie oe acral Tk Lk 


| VIII 
Puss Bod Wars Re OE 9 RNG Oe ar Rh eee ee a nk ae ce ee Ree 


IX 
Trae) JUDGMENT. UPON® WOMAN.« gp aad syieek ahs ego Paeuayy «wane Oe 


eT re Mrsenrre TIN MA Mae id Ge om eee in cds ac ees wet  AOG 


iV 


THE CLOTHING WITH SKINS 


CONTENTS 


XI 


XII 


THE EXPULSION FROM PARADISE. 


THE HoLty SABBATH . 


THE INSTITUTION AND ORGANIZATION OF SOCIETY . 


POPULATION $5325 .-< 


THE MORAL DIFFICULTIES OF 


THE PARAMOUNT CHARACTER 


CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS 


RELIGION AND POLITICS . 


XVII 


OF THE LORD’S TEACHING 


x VITE 


XIII 


XIV 


Ge 


XVI 


THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


182 


208 


236 


300 


409 


447 


THE 


WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


WITH REFERENCE TO SCEPTICAL OBJECTIONS 


> 


< 


Caer tp igen 


THE WISDOM 


OF 


EL On Vis OEP UL 


A 
THE CREATION OF THE WORLD 
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 


THE account of the creation in the first chapter of the 
Bible has always been greatly admired for its sublimity 
and beauty. The sentence with which it commences, “ In 
the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,” is 
a grand rhetorical synthesis which brings the whole sub- 
ject under a single view of the mind, and the subsequent 
analysis unrolls the vast picture in a succession of the most 
vivid and animated scenes. Hence we find that even a 
heathen rhetorician and philosopher, the amiable and 
accomplished Longinus, could not withhold from it his 
meed of glowing praise; for in his celebrated treatise on 
The Sublime he speaks of it in comparison with the beau- 
ties of Homer as follows: “So also the Jewish lawgiver, 
who was no common man, exhibits the power of the Deity 
in a manner worthy of its excellency: God said—what does 
He say? ‘Let there be light,’ and it was: ‘Let the earth 
be,’ and it was.” In fact, the sublimity of this representa- 
tion of the power of God, in that He created all things. 
by a word, is probably unrivalled in the literature of the 


world. 
1 


2 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


The expression, “In the beginning,” carries the mind 
back through all the dim ages of the past in order to 
portray to the imagination the genesis or origin of all 
created things. Its indefiniteness is eminently suitable to 
the subject. Jor here there is no attempt to determine 
chronologically when the creation took place ; nor, indeed, 
is there in the subsequent Scriptures any information from 
which it is possible to form a satisfactory estimate of the 
age of the world. We have no science of chronology re- 
vealed from heaven, any more than of other things which 
are the legitimate subjects of scientific investigation. There 
is no reason to think that the apostles or writers of the New 
Testament regarded the Scriptures as containing an inspired 
chronology. For they quote from the Septuagint trans- 
lation as freely as from the original, notwithstanding this 
version of the Old Testament would give for the age of 
the world nearly fifteen hundred years more than can be 
gathered from the Hebrew text. ‘They do not even notice 
this, nor similar discrepancies, which seems to warrant the 
inference that they did not regard them as of any practical 
importance. 

Jt is true, indeed, that learned men have taken the 
greatest pains to work up a sacred chronology from the 
data supplied in the Holy Scriptures. But no two of 
them agree in their results, so that they are of no author- 
ity. Nor can this be a matter of surprise to any one who 
will take the trouble to examine for himself the materials 
out of which these elaborate systems are constructed ; for 
he will find them to be nothing else but the genealogies 
interspersed here and there in the historical records, which 
a child may see were never intended and are totally un- 
trustworthy for any such purpose. For they freely apply 
the terms, father and son, to grandfathers and grandsons, 
and even to remote ancestors and descendants; and they 
leave out, or skip over two, three, and sometimes as many 
as thirty or forty generations at atime. Thus in the first 


THE MIRACLE OF CREATION 24 


words of St. Matthew’s Gospel “The book of the genera- 
tion of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abra- 
ham,” there are thirty-eight or forty generations omitted, 
links in the chain which are elsewhere supplied, and how 
many more we have no means of determining. Now, if 
this statement stood alone, it would appear that Christ 
was the son and not a remote descendant of David, and 
so of David with respect to Abraham. Hence, it would 
seem that the attempt to construct a chronology out of 
such materials is preposterous; and that great and good 
men should have wasted so much labor, learning and 
ingenuity in building up these imaginary schemes is one of 
those things which must be classed with the many attempts 
which have been made, and which have not yet ceased, to 
discover or invent a perpetual motion. The Holy Scrip- 
tures leave science perfectly free within her own sphere, as 
in all other things, so in this, to determine by her own 
methods, if she can, the age of the world and the length 
of time during which it has been inhabited by man. They 
teach nothing opposed to any conclusions upon these and 
similar questions which may be established on scientific 
evidence. If it should thus be proved that the earth is 
millions of years old, and that it has been inhabited by 
man for a much longer time than has commonly been sup- 
posed, we may accept these results without the least detri- 
ment to our faith and with entire satisfaction. 

The stupendous theme here presented to our contempla- 
tion is the creation of the universe by the power of God at 
some unknown time in the ages of the past. The being or 
existence of God is boldly assumed, without attempting to 
prove or account for it in any way; and in this respect 
there is a striking contrast between the Christian Scriptures 
and other ancient books which pretend to Divine inspira- 
tion. For in these counterfeits of the true coin we often 
find the most labored attempts to trace the genealogies of 
the gods, which are always absurd, inasmuch as it is mani- 


4 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


festly impossible to conceive of an origin for that from 
which all other things originated. We cannot even make 
an effort to form such a conception without involving our- 
selves in the labyrinths of an infinite series, in which there 
is always something beyond what we can reach with our 


minds, and of whose existence no rational account can be . 


given. Instead of leading us into the mazes of this in- 
extricable perplexity, the sacred writers begin with God in 
the exercise of all His personal and creative attributes, and 
simply refer to the creation of the world as being in it- 
self such evidence of His eternal power and Godhead that 
none but the fool can say in his heart, there is no God. 
And the reasonableness of this assumption can be denied 
by none but atheists, who are shut up to one or the other 
of the following alternatives, namely, either that the 
world has always existed, or that it came into being of 
itself. Now, that it has always existed and is eternal, is 
certainly a possible conception, yet it is one which has been 
constantly rejected by the masses of mankind and by the 
greatest minds and noblest characters the world has ever 
seen. With these we joyfully cast in our lot, without un- 
dertaking further to refute this form of atheism. But the 
other alternative, that the universe came into being of 
itself, is not a possible conception, however it may be re- 
garded as such by minds incapable of profound and rigor- 
ous thought. For it is a first and necessary. truth that 
whatever begins to be must be produced by some cause 
adequate and exterior to itself. All science rests on this 
truth as its foundation and chief corner-stone; without it 
there can be no such thing as science or knowledge. But 
after all, it is probable that nothing better can be said on 
this abstruse subject than what has been said by the author 
of the Epistle to the Hebrews: “ Through faith we under- 
stand that the worlds were framed, so that the things 
which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” 

Now this stupendous exercise of the power of God must 


THE MIRACLE OF CREATION 5) 


be conceived of as truly and properly of a miraculous char- 
acter, which affords us a favorable opportunity here to 
examine this primary fact of creation in its bearing upon 
the vexed question of the probability of miracles in the 
subsequent history of the world. We propose, therefore, 
in what follows to contemplate the subject of miracles from 
the point of view of the primal miracle of the creation of 
the universe. This we shall find to be high vantage- 
ground ; for scepticism or faith with respect to such abnor- 
mal manifestations of Divine power turns very much upon 
our stand-point. Considering only the absolute unitormity 
of physical laws, we must regard miracles as altogether 
improbable, and the burden of their proof as resting on 
their defenders. But standing where we are placed at the 
opening of God’s revelation to man, on this first and greatest 
of all miracles, we shall see that the antecedent probability 
is in favor of their subsequent occurrence, and that the 
burden of proof consequently rests on those who maintain 
that they have never occurred. For miracles must be ex- 
pected in the subsequent history of a world, or system of 
things, which originated in a miracle. 

In the first place, then, that the creation of the world 
was a miracle in the only true and proper sense of the word 
becomes evident as soon as we have formed a clear and 
right conception of what a miracle is, such as is contained 
in the following definition : A miracle is an act or work 
of God in the external world which cannot be compre- 
hended under the law of uniformity in physical causation, 
and to which the power of created beings is inadequate. 
But in referring such manifestations to the power of God 
exclusively we neither affirm nor deny that inferior and 
even wicked spirits may produce results having all the ap- 
pearance of miracles, for our present purpose does not re- 
quire the discussion of this curious question. A miracle 
as here defined can be wrought by none other but the power 
of God acting in a manner extraneous to the laws of nature. 


6 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


Yet does it in no wise imply their abolition, violation, or 
suspension for one moment. yen in the raising of the 
dead to life, the laws of gravitation, chemical, capillary 
and electrical attraction and repulsion, polarity of light, 
correlation and conservation of forces, together with all 
other physical laws which have ever been discovered or 
named, retain their uniformity, and remain absolutely un- 
affected. Let any one who speaks of a miracle as a viola- 
tion or suspension of nature’s laws be required to name 
the particular law which is supposed to be thus affected, 
and he will immediately see that no such thing is implied 
in the greatest miracle that was ever wrought. Buta true 
miracie cannot be ranged under any physical law, nor 
ascribed to any physical cause, whether light, heat, electricity, 
chemical attraction, or any other of the forces which operate 
uniformly in nature. Any fact which may have been called 
miraculous, if it be attributed to any of these, or if it be 
supposed that it may hereafter be accounted for by some 
as yet undiscovered physical force or law, ceases thereby to 
be regarded as a miracle. 

Hence it is obvious that the proper distinction between 
miracles and natural phenomena does not turn upon the 
conception of a different power or cause in the two cases. 
The ultimate cause which produces them is here conceived 
of as the same in both. Its mode of operation only is dif- 
ferent, being uniform in the one, and non-uniform or ab- 
normal in the other. For the forces of nature are simply 
the uniform action or energy of the power or will of God, 
and all physical phenomena are the results of His immediate 
and voluntary agency. But this conception requires to be 
elucidated and verified. 

Either, then, the forces of nature are the energy of the 
Divine will, or they are the acts of inferior spirits, or they 
are the properties of matter, or they are entities in them- 
selves. For no other conception of them ever has been, or 
ever can be formed ; nor, indeed, are all those possible con- 


THE MIRACLE OF CREATION 6 


ceptions. or as entities in themselves they are absolutely 
inconceivable, notwithstanding many scientists are accus- 
tomed to speak of “matter and force” as if these were in- 
dependent and co-ordinate existences. It is impossible to 
form a conception of force otherwise than as the act or 
property of some being or substance from which it pro- 
ceeds, In some such being, therefore, the forces of nature 
must inhere. As the properties of matter they are con- 
ceivable, but that this is not the true conception of them 
may be evinced by many considerations, especially by this, 
that it is inconsistent with the property of inertia, or essen- 
tial passivity of matter, upon which all astronomical and 
other physical science depends. For if a body cannot move 
itself, how can it by its own power move other bodies ? 
Hence it was maintained by Sir Isaac Newton that the at- 
traction of gravitation, so called, could not be a property 
of matter, but must be conceived of as a force acting from 
without upon matter. Moreover, our original conception 
of that which we call force is derived solely, as all agree, 
from the consciousness of our own voluntary acts in mov- 
ing our hands, feet, or other members of our bodies. But 
for this consciousness of our own voluntary causality we 
could know nothing whatever of force or causation, and in 
all the on-goings of the universe we should see nothing but 
precedence and sequence, or the bare succession of phe- 
nomena. Hence this conception of force, so obtained, can- 
not legitimately be extended to anything which is incapable 
of volition, for such an extension takes it out of the sphere 
in which alone we can know that there is any such thing. 
There is no evidence whatever that original causality can 
be exerted by any but voluntary beings : in other words, 
all force is will-power. Hence it becomes necessary to 
ascribe the forces of nature to spiritual agency, either to 
that of God himself, or to that of created spirits, angels or 
demons. This latter view with respect to angels or demons 
was held by Proclus and the eclectic philosophers of an- 


8 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


cient times, perhaps also by their great master, Plato him- 
self, and it is favorably regarded by some eminent modern 
theologians, But it seems to be extremely fanciful, and 
altogether inconsistent with the precision and absolute uni- 
formity, but above all, with the unity and infinite power 
which these forces everywhere manifest. The only possible 
conception of them which remains is, that they are the uni- 
form action or energy of the Divine will ; and this view is 
held and strenuously maintained by many eminent physicists 
of modern times. We shall see in the sequel that it is alto- 
gether Scriptural. 

Now with this conception of physical force it appears 
that the phenomena of light, heat, electricity, gravitation, 
and the like, the germination and growth of plants and 
animal bodies—in a word, all the productions of nature, 
differ from miracles, not at all in the power which pro- 
duces them, but simply and solely in that they are compre- 
hended under the law of uniformity in causation. For 
every such phenomenon there is an antecedent uniform 
cause, which is always the same for the same effect. Thus 
gravitation is the one such cause for the falling of a body 
to the earth wherever it occurs. Hence there is absolute 
uniformity in all the operations of nature—this is their 
specific character. In fact, the only true and proper mean- 
ing of the word nature is that in which it designates uni- 
formity in the phenomena of the world. 

Here, also, we have a criterion of distinction between 
true and false or pretended miracles. For these latter are 
phenomena which in reality are produced by uniform or 
physical causation, but which men ascribe to non-uniform 
or spiritual agency, either because they themselves are de- 
ceived, or because they seek to impose upon others. For 
whenever anything occurs of which the true cause is 
unknown, it may be ascribed to some occult physical force, 
or it may be regarded as a miracle. The former is charac- 
teristic of science, the latter of superstition. The Scriptu- 


THE MIRACLE OF CREATION 9 


ralview is the golden mean between these two extremes; 
namely, that there are such things as miracles, but that 
nothing is to be received as such except phenomena for 
which natural causes are undiscoverable and rationally in- 
conceivable. 

These views may be still further illustrated and con- 
firmed by considering the historical relations between 
science and superstition. or it is the specific function of 
science to account for and explain the phenomena of nature 
by ranging them under the laws of uniform causation; 
superstition, on the other hand, consists in ascribing them 
to spiritual agency. Consequently and in fact, wherever 
superstition has prevailed, science has been feeble; and as 
science has made progress, superstition has declined. 
Hence, in the earliest ages, the people were, and wherever 
the light of science has not penetrated they still are, under 
the dominion of gloomy and cruel superstitions. The 
negro population of the west coast of Africa are said to be 
diminishing in numbers from the enormous destruction of 
human life, which is constantly going on by the poison- 
ordeal for the detection of witchcraft. For this form of 
superstition seems to be the only religion of the people, 
and every case of natural sickness and death is attributed 
to supernatural agency. Even among the ancient Israel- 
ites, with all their light of Divine revelation, the wor- 
ship of the golden calf was with difficulty suppressed, 
and was subsequently restored by Jeroboam, “who made 
Israel to sin;” whilst “ Moloch, horrid king,’ to whom 
they offered up their infant children, continued to be wor- 
shipped down to a late period in their history. These 
and other similar abominations of superstition long re- 
mained among them, all resting on false miracles. Among 
the Greeks and other pagan peoples, in the earlier stages of 
their history, almost every natural phenomenon was as- 
cribed to supernatural agency—was regarded as a miracle. 
Hence that rabble of false gods which were the objects of 

1* 


10 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


their superstitious worship—gods of the earth, air and 
ocean—gods of the sun, moon and stars—gods of the day 
and of the night—a god for every season, stream and tree, 
and for every passion of the human heart. But when 
science began to make progress among them, when the uni- 
form causes of natural phenomena began to be discovered, 
the gods retired, either into the secret recesses of the tem- 
ples, or to the summits of the highest mountains. If, 
then, you would find one you must go to Delphi or to 
some other sacred fane, or you must ascend the steeps of 
Mount Olympus or Mount Ida. And when it was dis- 
covered that uniform causes, the same as in the populous 
plains and along the fertile banks of the rivers and streams, 
were in full operation on the mountain tops, the gods took 
flight to the skies, and dwelt in their golden palaces above 
the firmament. Even there they were not allowed to rest, 
but were warred upon by the earth-born Titans. In this 
final conflict, however, these enemies were overthrown and 
made to pay the penalty of their crimes. Such earth-born 
Titans are the great materialists of modern science, who 
would banish the Creator from the world He has created 
and upholds by the word of His power, and who. may 
read their doom in this old heathen prophecy. 
Notwithstanding, we can well afford to be patient with 
these painful negations into which foolish scientists are be- 
trayed by their excess of zeal for uniformity, especially 
when we consider the inestimable benefits of science in 
every department of human life, but most of all, what- 
ever foolish theologians may think, in religion. For true 
religion and true science are twin-sisters, both from God, 
though in different ways; both grand sources of human 
well-being; and their reciprocal influence is such that 
neither can do without the other. For, on the one hand, 
the intellectual faculties of man are rooted, so to speak, in 
his moral and spiritual nature, by means of which they 
draw their richest and only adequate nourishment from 


THE MIRACLE OF CREATION 11 


the infinite of truth; and it is only thus, in distinction 
from those of mere animals, that they are rendered capable 
of growth and development from generation to generation, 
and from age to age. All science, properly so called, 
erasps with the intellect the raw material of truth, and 
subjects it to the forms and laws of thought. It is truly 
and properly a blossom and fruit of faith, nor can it ever 
attain to its utmost and permanent development except 
upon the soil of religion. On the other hand, scientific 
culture is the most powerful and effective means of de- 
veloping and purifying the intellect, so that it becomes 
capable of appreciating the evidences and blessings of true 
religion, in distinction from baleful superstitions. This, 
doubtless, is the reason why Christianity, with its tran- 
scendentclaims upon the faith of mankind, always prevails 
wherever science is cultivated, and why there is not even 
a possibility of any other religion in the bosom of modern 
civilization. 

The benign influence of science upon religion, however, 
is most conspicuous, as has been indicated, in that it 
emancipates the human mind from the paralyzing terrors 
and hideous cruelties of superstition. For unenlightened 
faith does not teach men to discriminate between true and 
false miracles; nor, in any other respect, between true and 
false religions. Consequently it cannot effectually guard 
mankind against, nay, it betrays them and leaves them a 
prey to superstition. Tor, inasmuch as it mightily stimu- 
lates the imagination, it predisposes the mind to accept as 
miraculous facts or phenomena which can be otherwise 
comprehended and explained. ‘There is abundant evidence 
on this point in the idolatries of the ancient Tsraelites, in 
the superstitions of medizeval and modern Romanism, and 
in those which still remain in the bosom of the Protestant 
church. The overthrow of superstition is to be ascribed 
chiefly to the influence of science, stimulated, quickened 


and developed by the universal diffusion of the Holy Scrip- 


12 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


tures ; and this result is accomplished by its discoveries of 
physical causes for those phenomena which otherwise are 
sure to be regarded as miraculous. 

Having thus defined and elucidated the nature of a 
miracle as an act or work of God which is not in uniform- 
ity with the course of nature, we easily see that the creation 
of the world was truly and properly a miraculous exercise 
of Divine power. For “in the beginning” there was no 
pre-existing course of nature in uniformity with which 
the creation could stand; consequently there was no 
_ pbysical cause in operation by which it can be explained. 
Ié we admit that the world was created, the supposition 
of any such physical cause involves a palpable contradic- 
tion, because it assumes that nature, which is the system 
of uniform causation, existed before it began to exist. 
Nor does it matter how far back in time this creative work 
of God may be placed, whether six thousand or six mil- 
lions of years ago, nor how different that which was 
originally created may have been from what the world is 
now. It may even be conceded here, what on mere scien- 
tific evidence can be strenuously denied, that all existing 
things have been evolved, by uninterrupted uniform causa- 
tion, from the elemental star-dust of the astronomers, yet 
that star-dust, if it was the first thing created, must have 
originated without a physical cause, that is to say, by a 
miraculous act of the Creator. 

If then, we admit that there ever was any creation at 
all, if matter be not eternal, although no other miracle had 
ever occurred in the ,history of the world, yet here in its 
origin we have one at least, and one that covers a ereat 
deal of ground. And this miraculous origin of the world 
pours a flood of light upon the question, whether the 
occurrence of miracles in its subsequent history is, or is 
not, a credible and probable thing. In fact, it raises a 
strong presumption against absolute uniformity in the 
operations of Divine power, and in favor of a very differ- 


THE MIRACLE OF CREATION 13 


ent procedure. For since, as in this case, God has once 
acted in a manner not in uniformity with anything in the 
past, such exercise of His power is thereby established as 
one of the modes in which it is competent for Him to act; 
since He has wrought one miracle He may have seen it 
equally wise and good to work others; and since that one 
miracle was the creation of the world, it is reasonable to 
expect that subsequent development and history will par- 
take, in some degree at least, of the miraculous character 
of their origin. Thus we see that the antecedent proba- 
bility, or presumption, is not against miracles, as is com- 
monly supposed, but strongly in their favor. 

But in order to estimate this presumption at anything 
like its full value, it is necessary to take into consideration 
here the old and well-known truth, that the natures of 
things are in their beginnings. The peculiar nature of the 
oak is in the acorn, and so of all other plants after their 
kinds. The nature of the lion is in the lion’s cub, and so 
of all other species of animals. The nature of man was in 
the first man, and so of all other created beings. More- 
over, the peculiar natures of things often stand out unveiled 
more conspicuously in their origin than in any subsequent 
stage of their development or history. We have a beautiful 
example of this in the young of some domesticated animals, 
which bear the precise and uniform marks of their former 
wild state, although these marks have long ago disappeared 
from their ancestors under the modifying influences of 
domestication. This principle, that the natures of things 
are most conspicuous in their beginnings, has been applied 
in science with magnificent results. Hence that flood of 
light which the Jamented Agassiz, by his studies in embry- 
ology, poured upon the physical constitution of man, upon 
the whole subject of natural history, and, it may be added, 
upon the fundamental truths of religion. For his work 
on Classification is incomparably the greatest argument » 
in natural theology the world has ever seen. Paley, in 


14 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


comparison, 1s as the watch which one carries in his pocket 
to the world of living creatures. 

The principle holds equally good in all historical develop- 
ments. With what admirable insight St. Paul, in his 
discourse to the Athenians in the hall of the Areopagus, 
characterizes Greek idolatry by the germinal principle in 
which it originated, and in the development and realization 
of which its life consisted, namely, that the gods were like 
men, and therefore could be worthily represented and 
worshipped under human forms and images of gold and 
silver and stone “graven by art and man’s device!” ‘Thus, 
also, the idea that might makes right is one upon which 
heathen Rome was founded, in consequence of which it 
dominated through all her vast history, from the rape of 
the Sabine virgins to her final conquest and plunder of the 
world. In like manner, the history of the Jews—what is 
it to this hour but the realization of the covenant made 
with Abraham, in which it had its mysterious origin? 
And what is the history of Protestantism but that of the 
progressive realization of those ideas of individual liberty 
and personal responsibility in which it originated? Nor 
is it possible to comprehend the history of the American 
republic apart from the ideas, purposes, aspirations and 
character of those refugees from civil and religious oppres- 
sion who first landed on our shores and founded our 
institutions. 

Now this truth, that the beginnings of things contain 
and manifest their true natures, of which their whole his- 
tory is the development and realization, applies with all its 
significance to the creation and subsequent history of the 
world, For since the world originated in a stupendous 
miracle, the miraculous exercise of Divine power must be 
conceived of as entering into its constitution, as required 
for its conservation, and as certain to be manifested in its 
history. Would it not be a strange and incomprehensible 
thing if its most essential and striking characteristic in its 


THE MIRACLE OF CREATION 15 


origin should from that moment and forever disappear ? 
Is it reasonable to suppose that, owing its very existence to 
a miracle, it would never in the whole course of its subse- 
quent history manifest anything of a miraculous nature? 
We might as well say that although the nature of the 
oak is in the acorn, yet the nature of the acorn is not in 
the oak. Jewish history originated in the covenant with 
Abraham, but the principle of that transaction must not be 
expected ever again to manifest itself in the life of the 
Jewish people. Greek idolatry sprang from the belief 
that the gods were like men, but it must not be anticipated 
that it will ever produce a statue of any god in a human 
form. Protestantism originated in the principle of indi- 
vidual liberty and responsibility, but it is against all 
probability that there should ever be another manifestation 
of this principle in Protestant history. Such is the pre- 
posterous assumption of those who admit a primal creation, 
and yet maintain that the occurrence of miracles in the 
subsequent history. of the world is against all probability, 
and incapable of being substantiated without such an array 
of evidence as is required for no other class of facts. 

But it may be objected to this argument that it proves 
too much, namely, that the whole history of the world 
should partake of a miraculous character. For since the 
principle in which Protestantism originated reappears at 
every step of its progress, the miraculous exercise of Di- 
vine power which gave birth to the universe ought, not 
occasionally, but constantly to manifest itself. Now this 
is a perfectly fair objection, and requires to be as fairly 
met. The solution of the difficulty, however, is not far to 
seek, for we shall find it in the conception of miracle 
which has been defined, together with a further confirma- 
tion of this definition. 

For the definition of a miracle which has been given 
includes, along with others, these two distinct and separable 
elements, namely, (1) an act of God, and (2) such an ex- 


16 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


ertion of His power as cannot be comprehended under the 
law of uniformity in physical causation. Now, if the 
whole agency of God in nature had been of a non-uniform 
character, it is evident, since all the physical forces are the 
energy of His power, that there could have been no such 
thing as law or order in the universe. Consequently 
science, which, properly defined, is the knowledge of laws, 
would have been impossible. Neither could there have 
been any rational creatures; for reason in man involves 
the recognition of uniformity in such laws as that fire will 
burn, and water will drown; that food nourishes, and 
poison kills. It is insanity to think that there is no such 
uniformity: nor can it be doubted but that, if the uniform 
laws which now govern the forces and phenomena of na- 
ture should be set aside, universal insanity in mankind 
would immediately ensue. Moreover, without such uni- 
formity the creation itself could never have passed beyond 
the first stage of chaos, if it could have attained even to 
that; for law and order are its fundamental ideas as a 
cosmos, apart from which it could never have existed. In 
fine, it is an inconceivable thing that the whole agency of 
God in nature should be of a non-uniform character ; for 
if it had been such, this would have been the uniform 
mode of His operations. The supposition, therefore, is 
self-contradictory and absurd. Thus we see that there 
were the best of reasons why the universe was made sub- 
ject to law, why a departure from uniformity in all its 
phenomena was impossible, and why this element of mira- 
cle must necessarily; be of comparatively rare occurrence. 
But, with respect to the other element of miracle, the 
energy or action of the Divine power, the case is altogether 
different; for this is always and everywhere present 
throughout the universe. One form of its manifestation 
is in the sustentation of created things. For God did not 
only create, but ‘He upholds all things by the word of His 
power, and by Him all things consist.’ The continuance 


THE MIRACLE OF CREATION 17 


in existence of that which He has created depends upon the 
direct and immediate action of His will as truly as did the 
creation itself. But for this the universe would instantly 
cease and become as if it had never been. This rock- 
ribbed earth with all its marble bones, however solid and 
indestructible it may seem, would lose its solidity; it 
would melt and dissolve as a vapor, and not even a vapor 
would be left. This glorious arch of the heavens, this 
“firmament,” whose name in all languages is significant of 
its immovable stability, would immediately disappear. 
What stability in these laws of nature, by which the plan- 
ets revolve in their prescribed orbits, by which the sun 
rises and sets in bis appointed times, by which the earth 
brings forth her productions in their proper seasons ! 
What conservation of all the forces of nature, so that, in 
the multiform changes which are constantly taking place, 
not one particle of them is ever expended or lost! Yet, if 
God should cease for one moment to exert His energy in 
nature, that moment all this would cease to be. And this 
subtle, impalpable essence in man, his mind, soul, spirit, 
by which he thinks, feels and acts, is no less dependent 
upon uninterrupted sustentation by the will and power of 
God than is his physical organism. | 

But the presence and energy of Divine power in nature 
is not limited to sustentation. For inasmuch as the physi- 
cal forces which act upon matter and produce most of its 
phenomena are the uniform action of the will of God, 
He is the doer of whatsoever is done by them as truly and. 
immediately as in miracles themselves. God is the im- 
mediate source of all working power in and throughout 
the physical universe. The laws of nature are nothing 
but the uniform modes or methods according to which, for 
good and sufficient reasons, He chooses to work. ‘These 
laws are never to be confounded with the forces of which 
they are simply the modes of operation; nor are these 
forces to be identified with the properties of matter, the 


18 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


chief of which is inertia or passivity. The conception of 
nature as a vast and complex machine, having its powers 
in itself as the properties of matter, or otherwise, which 
God created a great while ago, and which He now stands 
by, or afar off, to watch and direct, as an engineer super- 
intends the machinery of a factory, would, if it were ex- 
haustively analyzed, be found as self-contradictory as that 
of a perpetual motion. But the moral consequences of its 
prevalence are those which are most to be deplored. For 
if the machine be a perfect one, as surely the work of in- 
finite wisdom and power ought to be, what need or place 
is there for God even as an engineer? ‘Thus by this con- 
ception the Creator is banished from His own works. The 
omnipotent and ever-active God of the Scriptures becomes 
little more than the deity of the ancient Epicureans, with- 
drawn into some remote corner of infinite space, too far 
off to concern himself with our petty interests or welfare— 
a god of eternal idleness. Indeed, if He were ever so much 
concerned for our well-being and happiness, what, according 
to this conception of Him, could He do for us, even in our 
utmost need, subject as we are to the fatal forces of nature, 
with whose operations He has nothing whatever to do? 
Such views of God and nature render “the faith of prayer 
and all expectation of help from Him impossible and 
absurd. It is a doctrine of despair. 

The sacred writers know nothing of nature as a system 
of matter and force, nor of forces inherent in matter. They 
everywhere represent natural phenomena as immediately 
caused by the power or will of God. In these days there 
has been a wide departure, even among Christians and the- 
ologians, from the forms of expression in which His omni- 
present agency is revealed and emphasized. For where we 
are accustomed to say, it thunders, it lightens, it rains, it 
storms, and the like, in the word of God it is: “ The fire of 
God...God thundereth marvellously with His voice. 
He commandeth and raiseth up the stormy wind... He 


THE MIRACLE OF CREATION 19 


maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof be 
still... He sendeth the springs into valleys... He wa- 
tereth the hills... He giveth rain upon the earth... 
These wait all upon thee that thou mayest give them 
their meat in due season... Thou sendest forth thy breath 
—they are created. Thou openest thy hand—they are 
filled with good. Thou takest away their breath—they 
die and return to their dust... Behold the fowls of the air 
... your heavenly Father feedeth them... Consider the 
lilies of the field ....Solomon in all his glory was not ar- 
rayed like one of these... If God so clothe the grass of 
the field... how much more shall he clothe you?... Are 
not two sparrows sold for a farthing ?...and one of them 
shall not fall on the ground without your Father.” 

Such is ever the Scriptural representation of nature, 
namely, as the power or will of God working according 
to those methods which are properly called physical laws. 
He, therefore, moves the planets, according to the method 
or law of gravitation, through their vast elliptical orbits 
around their focal suns. He shines in the light, and 
quickens the earth with His genial influences. He sprouts 
the germ in the ground, and draws up the juices of the 
earth through its capillary tubes, and nourishes there- 
with the growing plant. He stretches out its branches, 
puts forth its leaves, blooms its flowers, paints their petals 
with His own varied and beautiful colors, and forms and 
ripens its delicious fruit. The lightning is the flash of His 
eye, the thunder is His voice, now as of old. He speaks in 
the roar of the cataract, the storm, and the troubled ocean 
as truly (though in a different manner) as He spoke from 
the midst of the cloud and flame on the summit of Mount 
Sinai to the many thousands of Israel. In the motions of 
the planetary worlds, in the blooming of the flowers, in 
the growing and ripening of the corn, in the fall of the 
sparrow, in the birth of an infant, His direct and immediate 
agency is manifested as truly (though in a different man- 


20 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


ner) as it was in the creation of the world and in the raising 
of Lazarus from the dead. All this He does now by His 
free choice and voluntary action, though ina uniform man- 
ner, no less than He so acted when he created the universe. 
For within, under, behind — or howsoever it may be ex- 
pressed—all the methods, processes, forces and laws of 
nature is ever the omnipresent action or energy of the one 
only living and true God. 

And not only in the phenomena of nature, strictly so . 
called, is this ubiquitous action of the Divine power, but 
also in the sustentation and government of his rational and 
voluntary creatures, even in the fullest exercise of their 
own freedom and responsibility. For although man’s acts 
are his own, and in no such sense the acts of God as that 
thereby his responsibility can be impaired, yet is he not, 
even in the freest exercise of his faculties, independent of 
God, but is ever subject to His influence and under His 
control : “The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, and 
as the rivers of water He turneth it whithersoever He will. 
... Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee, and the re- 
mainder of wrath shalt thou restrain.” Thus it is that by 
His sovereign control and direction of man’s faculties God 
is in all human history working out His wise and holy and 
benign purposes, no less, (though in a different manner) 
than in the world of nature, or the sphere of physical forces 
and their laws. In fine, the direct and immediate agency 
of God by His Holy Spirit is manifested in the regenera- 
tion and sanctification of human souls, and in all the phe- 
nomena of spiritual life, in such wise that this whole work 
would have to be regarded as miraculous in the full sense 
of the word, if it were not that in it the human is Insepara- 
bly blended with the Divine, and that it partakes of some- 
thing approaching to uniformity. 

Now, with these Scriptural views of the Divine agency 
in nature and in man—views which are held by many and 
an ever-increasing number of distinguished physicists at 


THE MIRACLE OF CREATION 1: 


the present time—we see that one element of miracle, 
namely, the energy of God, is in full manifestation every- 
where in the universe and throughout its whole history. 
The other element, that is, departure from uniformity, was 
not possible nor conceivable, except in rare cases. Hence 
the objection that, if the true nature and constitution of the 
world be represented in the miracle of its creation, its 
whole history ought to be miraculous, is not valid; whilst, 
at the same time, it is found to embody one of the most 
important of all truths, and one which confirms instead of 
invalidating the presumption that miracles in the full 
sense of the word would occur, whereby a still heavier 
burden of proof is laid upon those who maintain that 
never since the creation has there been any such manifesta- 
tion of Divine power. 

Moreover, the counter-presumption of absolute uniformity 
upon which over-zealous and one-sided scientists lay so much 
stress, is wholly gratuitous, and no less inconsistent with the 
most exalted and perfect ideas which we can form of the 
Divine Being. For there is not a shadow of proof that by 
such uniformity the best possible results in the government 
and history of the world could be attained. God, in the ex- 
ercise of His infinite wisdom and all-comprehending fore- 
knowledge, may, for aught that appears, have the best of 
reasons for varying His methods of procedure. One such 
reason may here be suggested, namely, that occasional de- 
partures from strict uniformity would be the most striking 
and conclusive evidence conceivable of His free personality. 
And there is manifestly great need of just such evidence ; 
for that which is afforded by the uniformity of His opera- 
tions in nature is incomplete and obscure—at least, there 
are many whom it fails to convince. Hence it is that those 
scientists who deny the possibility or the fact of miracles 
gravitate, as by inevitable necessity, towards either ma- 
terialism or pantheism, and, in either case, to the denial 
of the personality of the First Cause, whilst this neither 1s 


22 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


nor ever can be doubted by those who admit the fact or 
the possibility of miraculous phenomena. Also, it is evident 
that the conception of the First Cause as a free moral and 
personal Being is a nobler and more exalted idea of Him 
than that which represents Him—we ought rather to say, 
it, as an impersonal and fatal force; for a person is higher 
in the scale of being than a thing—a man is a nobler 
being than a steam-engine. The iruth is, that absolute 
reason, which is the principle of uniformity in the Divine 
operations, and absolute free-will or personality, without 
which no variation from such uniformity is conceivable, 
are both equally essential to the noblest idea which we can 
form of the Creator, to whom, as the work of His hands, 
we are bound in reason to ascribe all that we can conceive 
of excellence and perfection. What, then, is more to be 
anticipated than that He should reveal to us the sovereign 
perfection of His reason, wisdom and foreknowledge of all 
contingencies by the uniformity of His operations in nature, 
and by miracles, the fulness of His free personality? 

The conclusion which we have kept steadily in view in 
all the previous discussion, and indicated from time to 
time, is, that antecedently to all inductive evidence on the 
subject, it is more probable that miracles have occurred in 
the history of the world than that they have not, and, 
consequently, the phenomena which claim to be such re- 
quire no more or better evidence to substantiate them than 
other facts for which no such claim is made. Hence the 
burden of proof does not rest on those who advocate mira- 
cles, but on those'who maintain that they are impossible, 
or that they never have occurred, just as it would rest on 
him who should maintain that there never have been any 
such things as earthquakes or tornadoes. or the evidence 
which has produced the common belief of mankind in 
tornadoes, earthquakes and miracles must stand good until 
it is overthrown. Whether, indeed, the facts which have 
been called miraculous are truly such, is always an open 


‘THE MIRACLE OF CREATION 93 


question, until it has been finally decided by science, 
whether or not they can be accounted for by natural causes, 
or referred to uniform laws. If in this way they can be 
rationally explained, they must cease to be regarded as 
miracles, and remanded to the domain of natural phe- 
nomena, whatever may be the consequences. But to deny 
the facts themselves, or to require stronger evidence for 
them than for other facts, whilst the antecedent probability 
stands, as we here see, in favor of occasional non-uniform 
manifestations of Divine power, is unscientific and prepos- 
terous. 

It does not enter into the object of this discussion even 
to touch upon that vast array of inductive evidence which 
has been marshalled by theologians in defence of the 
miracles of Scripture, especially for those wrought by our 
Lord Jesus Christ. All that is here attempted is to show 
that they are in perfect harmony with the miraculous 
creation of the world, with the most rational a prior? con- 
ceptions we can form of what, its history would be, and 
with our noblest ideas of the character and perfections of 
God. There is no room for doubt, however, but that they 
are inseparable from, and are a chief corner-stone of 
Christian religion. Whoever denies them, especially the 
resurrection of Christ, or supposes that they may hereafter 
be explained by some as yet undiscovered law of physical 
causation, denies Christ, and must inevitably, if he be 
sufficiently strong in logic, become either a matcrialist or a 
pantheist. Stop short of this he cannot, except by reject- 
ing the legitimate consequences of his own principles—by 
halting in those very processes of thought which have led 
him to his present position. This argument, therefore, 
may fitly close with some suggestions of the enormous 
difficulties under which they labor who hold that the forces 
of nature are originally inherent in matter, and that from 
the uniform operation of these forces the existence of all 
things can be rationally explained. 


24 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


First, then, these materialists can give no account what- 
ever of the origin or existence of matter as endowed with 
these properties or powers. Whence did it come? How 
came it to be thus mysteriously and wonderfully endowed? 
They do not pretend to answer these legitimate questions, 
but, with a frankness which is worthy of all praise, they 
say, We do not know. How much easier is it to believe 
in God as the Creator of matter, and as the: primary source 
of all the natural forces! But, in this case, the stupen- 
dous miracle of creation comes back upon us, along with 
all its consequences, as these have been exhibited. Secondly, 
they have no rational account to give of those innumerable 
correlations and adaptations in the cosmos which evince 
intelligence, purpose, design, as clearly and fully as it is 
conceivable that these could be manifested ; for, if intelli- 
gence had presided over the formation of the world, how 
could it have been made to appear otherwise than by just 
such correlations as we everywhere see? The physical, 
intellectual and moral correspondences between the two 
sexes, the mother’s bosom and the nourishment of her 
child, the stomach and its food, the heart and its blood, 
the lungs and the air, the eye and the light, the motions 
and order of the planetary and stellar worlds, the light 
and heat of the sun in their relation to the production, 
support and development of organic life, the intellectual 
faculties and their objects—all these, together with in- 
numerable similar correlations and adaptations, result, if 
we are to believe the materialist or pantheist, whether 
avowed or veiled under development theories, from the 
operation of blind unintelligent causes, the forces of nature 
which are the properties of matter. How much easier is 
it to believe in a God of infinite wisdom, power and good- 
ness, who created all these things in their beautiful and 
perfect adaptations to the purposes which they subserve! 
In the third place, the human soul, with all its wonderful 
powers or faculties of intellect, sensibility and will, is pro- 


THE MIRACLE OF CREATION 95 


duced, according to science run mad, by the operation of 
the same forces or properties of matter, which themselves 
have no will, no sensibility, no intelligence. Is not this 
an effect. without any adequate cause? Is the maxim that 
“the quality of the effect is antecedently in its cause,” 
which has always been regarded as a necessary truth, and 
which lies at the foundation of all science and knowledge, 
no longer a truth? Can that which has no intelligence, 
no sensibility, and no will, be the cause of sensibility, in- 
telligence and will? How much easier is it to believe in 
God who created man in his own image! Finally, these 
men affirm that Christ and his apostles were either fanatics 
and fools, or impostors; that He himself never rose from 
the dead; that His mind and soul have utterly perished, 
and are asif they had never been. Credat Judeus Apella, 
non ego. And, again, how much easier is it to believe in 
God who raised up Jesus Christ from the dead! 

In the leisure of a summer vacation it happened that 
the author once read over almost consecutively Renan’s 
Vie de Jesus. He was quite carried away for the time 
by the magic of its sensuous style. When he had finished 
the work, he took up the Gospels, and read for an hour or 
two, and he here bears record that it was like coming up 
out of the sulphurous darkness of hell into the clear light 
and vital air of heaven. Again he sat at the feet of Jesus 
on the shore of the sea of Galilee. Peter and James and 
John were there, and Mary Magdalene, and Mary, the 
ever-blessed mother of the Lord. Once more he looked up 
with them into that dear face, and there beheld the wisdom, 
power and love of God revealed. There, also, in the face 
of Jesus Christ, he saw that his own soul was immortal, 
and that it was an object of the Divine compassion and 
love. Ah, how the tears flowed as he heard his Lord say, 
with what voice! “O thou of little faith, wherefore didst 
thou doubt?” Then it was as if he had stood on the 
banks of the river of life, which flows forth out of the 

2 


26 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


throne of God and the Lamb through the golden streets 
of the new Jerusalem, under the shade of the tree of life, 
which bears twelve manner of fruits, and yields her fruit 
every month, and whose leaves are for the healing of the 
nations. And there he resolved that, God helping him, 
he for one would go down into hell no more. 


aE 


II 


THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY 


These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when 
they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth 
and the heavens. 


THE cosmogony of Moses has been often attacked and 
defended with arguments which seem alike unsound, and 
the controversy is yet undecided. Here, therefore, it is in 
place for us to examine the principal questions to which 
it has given rise, in order to see whether any further light 
can be thrown upon it. The subject, however, is a very 
extensive one, involving, as it does, the relation between 
science and religion in general, which requires to be eluci- 
dated before we can reach any right understanding of the 
cosmogony itself. Properly understood, however, nearly 
or quite all its alleged difficulties may be expected to dis- 
appear. 

It is quite evident, then, that the scepticism of modern 
times finds its strongest defences and support in the notion 
which, no doubt, is sincerely held by many, that the teach- 
ings of Divine revelation are somehow inconsistent and 
irreconcilable with the best ascertained results of physical 
science. Hence there has arisen a schism between science 
and religion which is productive of very deplorable con- 
sequences. Yet we may be sure that these twin-sisters 
cannot remain forever at feud. There must be some com- 
mon ground where reasonable people can stand without 
prejudice against either, and with their minds equally open 
to both of these grand sources of truth and human well- 
being. Indeed, it seems plain from the past history and 


present state of this controversy that it could never have 
27 


28 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


arisen unless either scientists or theologians had transcended 
their own legitimate department of knowledge and invaded 
the province or domain of the others. As a matter of fact, 
this error is justly chargeable on both parties, inasmuch as 
science is constantly presuming to question and even to 
deny the truths of religion, and religion, the truths of 
science. A thousand examples on either side might easily 
be given, such as the assumption—for, as we have seen, it 
is no more—by many scientists of absolute uniformity in 
all the operations of Divine power, so that miracles and 
answers to prayer become impossible, and, on the part of . 
theologians, such interpretations of Scripture as are incon- 
sistent with the most certain truths of science. We may 
be sure, therefore, that this baleful schism can never be 
healed until religion and science shall come to recognise 
each other as original and independent sources of truth, 
and as ultimate authorities, each within its own sphere. 
But this of itself would not give us a final solution of the 
problem, for the results accepted as truths on both 
sides might still be inconsistent. It is necessary, in addi- 
tion, that a principle of interpretation be established which, 
consistently applied to the whole Scripture, shall leave no 
legitimate ground for science to deny the truths of revela- 
tion, nor for religion to call in question the truths of science. 
Such a principle we here undertake to establish, not, in- 
deed, as anything new, but only as requiring a more rigor- 
ous verification and a more extensive application than it 
has hitherto received. When we come to apply it to the 
cosmogony we shall see what aid it will give us in solving 
its difficulties. 

This principle may be enunciated as follows : The Holy 
Scriptures were given to reveal moral and spiritual truths 
—it is no part of their object to teach the truths of science, 
upon which, consequently, they are no authority—a state- 
ment which requires, however, to be elucidated, and con- 


firmed. 


THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY 99 


A very slight acquaintance, then, with the origin, style 
and contents of the sacred records is enough to satisfy any 
one that it was no part of their object to reveal the truths 
of science.. For they originated and were communicated 
to the world through a nomad sheik and his tribe, than 
whom no people were ever more destitute of scientific ten- 
dencies and culture. If their object had included precise 
and infallible statements on matters of science, probably the 
Greeks would have been chosen for this purpose, for scien- 
tific tendencies and adaptations were as characteristic of the 
Greek mind as they were foreign to the Jew. As to their 
style, which will require to be more fully exhibited in the 
sequel, it is never scientific, but always and eminently 
popular, And, with respect to their contents, these are 
chiefly great moral and spiritual truths, such as the being 
and personality of God, that He created the universe, and 
man in His own likeness, that His moral laws are of eternal 
and immutable obligation, that man has fallen from the 
estate of innocence wherein he was created, and that God 
has redeemed the world from sin and misery by the most 
holy sacrifice of His only begotten Son. These truths are 
the great burden of the Christian Scriptures, the great ob- 
jects of Christian faith, and whatever there may be in the 
Bible which does not bear immediately upon them must 
be regarded as of secondary importance. 

Yet the failure to recognize this, or the notion that the 
Scripture must be taken as an infallible authority, not 
only upon moral and spiritual, but also on scientific ques- 
tions, or, at least, that its allusions and statements with 
respect to physical phenomena must somehow be harmo- 
nized withthe results of scientific investigation—this notion 
extensively prevails at the present time, and is productive 
of the most disastrous consequences. For not only does 
it put into the hands of sceptical scientists their most 
effective weapons, but also it vitiates and poisons theology 
itself. or, standing on this ground, theologians are under 


80 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


a necessity to defend all Scriptural allusions to physical 
phenomena as scientifically accurate, and this view of them 
as essential to a true faith in the word of God. Con- 
sequently, whenever science establishes any new truth 
which bears upon them, so that it can no longer be called 
in question by reasonable people, theologians are sorely 
tempted to foist into the words of Scripture a sense in 
harmony with it which they were never intended to bear. 
In this way all true principles of exegesis are confounded 
in order to make Divine revelation teach whatever human 
science, in its progressive development and unceasing 
changes, may at any time be thought to require. And 
where this expedient seems to be impracticable, they be- 
come liable to a worse temptation, namely, to deny the 
most certain results of science in order to maintain their 
faith in the revelation. For thus they have often been heard 
to say to scientists, This is contrary to the word of God; 
if you prove your point we must give up our Bible. 
Then, after the point has been proved and universally 
accepted, the scientist replies, Why do you not give up 
your Bible, as you said you would? Thus our holy faith 
is made an object of sceptical mockery. 

As an example of this, we may be allowed to recall here 
the well-worn story of Galileo, the significance of which, 
as it would seem, has never yet been fully appreciated. 
For it is still a most instructive fact, that formerly the 
Scriptures were universally understood to teach the geocen- 
tric system of the physical universe—that the earth was 
the immovable centre of motion to the sun, moon and 
stars. But when Galileo came to see that this construction 
of the cosmos was no longer tenable, and substituted in 
its place the solicentric system—that the earth and other 
planets revolved around the sun—the alarm which was 
awakened in the minds of theologians by this complete 
revolution in astronomical science was so great that it is 
hardly conceivable by us at the present time. Conse- 


THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY 91 


quently they resisted it with all their immense influence ; 
and, having “the powers that be” on their side, they com- 
pelled this foremost man of all the world to repudiate the 
truth in order to save his life. Now who can estimate the 
enormity of this scandal? Yet the lesson which it teaches 
has been very imperfectly learned. For similar though 
perhaps not such extreme oppositions to scientific discov- 
eries have been made in our time. We have had the most 
embittered discussions of the age of the earth, of the length 
of time during which it has been inhabited by man, and 
of other matters of science, which theologians had long 
ago determined by the authority of Scriptures. 

In allusion to these scandals the venerable Archibald 
Alexander, formerly professor in the theological seminary 
at Princeton, was accustomed to say to his classes: 

“Young gentlemen, you should never say to the men 
of science, If you prove this or that, we must give up our 
Bible. On the contrary, you ought to say, Go on, gentle- 
men, make all the discoveries you can, for we are not 
afraid of the truth. But please to remember that, whilst 
you are dispucding among yourselves, we are not obliged to 
accept the views of any party. It is our place to wait 
until you have come to an agreement; and when you shall 
have established any new truth, so that you yourselves no 
longer dispute about it, we will accept it without fear that 
it will have any bad effect on our faith. For since, as we 
hold, the Author of nature and of revelation is one and 
the same infinitely wise and good Being, true science and 
true religion can never have any quarrel with each other.” 

Now, if. this beautiful rule of practical wisdom were 
constantly followed, it would leave little or no ground of 
controversy between science and religion, but harmony 
would be established in the future history of these two 
great and co-ordinate factors of Christian civilization, 
between which, in fact, there never has been any opposition 
but that which has arisen either from “ science falsely so 


32 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


called,” or from unsound and indefensible interpretations 
of Scripture. 

The principle which has thus been enunciated and de- 
veloped we shall find abundantly confirmed, and its appli- 
cations illustrated by a somewhat particular consideration 
of the Scriptural allusions and statements with respect to 
physical phenomena. J or there was a necessity that such 
allusions should occur on every page, and almost in every 
sentence, from the vast number of natural objects which 
aired to be mentioned; and these objects had to be 
spoken of by name long pata scientific nomenclatures 
were invented—before Gee was any such thing as science 
in the world. Now, in what forms of expression ought 
we to expect that these unavoidable allusions and _ state- 
ments with respect to the legitimate subjects of future 
scientific investigation would be made—whether, in terms 
scientifically correct and adequate, so that no subsequent 
progress in science should ever be able to criticise them, 
or in popular language, such as was spoken at the time 
when the revelation was given, and such as the most 
illiterate and ignorant people, who yet had souls to be 
saved, could understand?. Since the question does not 
seem satisfactorily to answer itself, we here undertake to 
demonstrate that the former method or procedure was 
impracticable, and that the latter was the only one that 
could be followed. 

For if these Scriptural allusions to physical phenomena 
had been made in forms of expression scientifically correct 
and adequate, the Bible would have been unintelligible to 
all the generations of mankind who lived and died before 
the birth of science, and still such to the nations and great 
masses who are destitute of scientific culture. In order to 
see this, we need only consider that a scientific expression 
of the sun’s rising and setting would be something like 
this: The earth revolving on its axis reveals and shies 
the sun. But, at the ge the Scriptures were given, no 


THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY Do 


one, not even Moses, though learned in all the wisdom of 
the Egyptians, could have understood such words: and 
the expression itself is so clumsy that we ourselves cannot 
use it; we continue to say, The sun rises and sets, knowing 
all the time that it is as far as possiblefrom being scientifi- 
cally correct. Hence we cannot logically infer from 
their use of such expressions that the sacred writers were 
ignorant of the Copernican or Newtonian theory of the 
universe, although it would be absurd, no doubt, to sup- 
pose them acquainted with it. Since, then, these physical 
phenomena had to be mentioned or referred to in almost 
every sentence, if scientific terms had been employed, the 
Scriptures would have been unintelligible to all men at the 
time they were written, and, doubtless, would have been 
universally rejected as the ravings of insanity. If they 
could have been preserved, which is hardly supposable, no 
one could ever have understood them until they had come 
to be interpreted by modern science. Nor would they 
have been any more intelligible to us at this day than to 
those of former ages. For science is not yet perfect, nor 
ever indeed can be. It is constantly making progress and 
changing its nomenclature and its modes of conceiving of 
physical objects—and, doubtless, it will always continue to 
do so. Thus, what lately it called caloric it now calls a 
form or mode of motion, and the term caloric is no longer 
used. So, also, light, which was formerly a fluid, is now 
the result of vibrations in ether. Consequently, the time 
may come, nay, is sure to come, when many of its now cur- 
rent forms of expression will be found incorrect and in- 
adequate, as involving more or less of erroneous conception 
and theory, and will be superseded by others in accordance 
with more advanced knowledge. Hence we see that these 
allusions in the Scriptures to physical phenomena, in order 
that they should be absolutely correct and unchangeable, 
must have been made in terms corresponding, not to the 
present, but to the still future and last developments of 
2x 


o4 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


science: in which case, they would have been unintelligible 
to us, and to how many of the coming generations of mai- 
kind we cannot tell. 

Moreover, since it is impossible to understand a scien- 
tific expression of any great physical phenomenon, such as 
the rotating earth reveals and_ hides the sun, without ac- 
quaintance with the cosmical theory to which it belongs, it 
would have been necessary, in order to meet this difficulty, 
that there should be revealed in the Scriptures, not only 
the truths of religion, but also a perfect system of science. 
But self-evidently this was no part of the object for which 
they were given, and the attempt would have introduced 
inconceivably greater difficulties than it could have re- 
moved. For (1) it would have made the Bible of such 
enormous bulk that, it is safe to say, no one person could 
ever have read it through. (2) Such a revelation of 
science would itself have been utterly unintelligible. For 
the human mind is the subject of development. It has 
had to grow up through all the ages of the past, in order 
to become capable of mastering that vast and complex sys- 
tem of knowledge which is included in the word science. 
If such a system had been revealed from heaven with the 
utmost clearness, it could no more have been comprehended 
during the early stages of the human mind than it can be 
now by little children. If, e. g., all that is signified by 
the mariner’s compass, naval architecture, steam navigation, 
the ocean telegraph, and other such expressions, had been 
revealed to Cimon or Themistocles, those old Greek admi- 
rals whose most daring voyages hugged the shores of the 
Mediterranean, and who were hardly ever out of sight of 
land in their lives—is it conceivable they could have com- 
prehended it? or it is impossible for man, even by the 
aid of any revelation, to bridge the great ocean of thought 
which lies between his knowledge at any given period 
and that to which he will arrive step by step in the progress 
of thousands of years. (3) Moreover, if we suppose that 


THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY 30 


such a revelation of science had been given, and that it 
could have been understood, it would have superseded 
that laborious exercise of the human faculties in experl- 
ment, research and reasoning which, according to all 
experience, is indispensable to their development and 
growth. For the search after truth has been held by 
some of the greatest minds the world has ever seen to be 
more conducive to mental power than the truth itself. In 
the words of Lessing: “If you place the truth before me, on 
the one hand, and on the other, the search for truth, I take 
the search.” This may be an overstatement, but there lies 
‘nit this much at least which is unquestionable, that, as 
man is constituted, his intellectual faculties could never 
have been developed so as to comprehend science other- 
wise than by means of that strenuous exercise of them 
through which all his discoveries have been made and all 
his progress achieved. 

Hence it is evident that there were overwhelming rea- 
sons why the revelation did not, and could not, make the 
necessary allusions and statements with respect to physical 
phenomena in scientific terms. We see here an absolute 
necessity that they should be managed in some other way ; 
and we pass on now to the consideration of this other 
method which was actually adopted, and which, it is 
claimed, is followed out with perfect consistency from 
the first chapter of Genesis to the last of the Apocalypse. 

Here, then, recurring to the typical expression, the sun 
rises and sets, we see that it is derived from the impression 
which the phenomena make upon the sense of sight—from 
that which appears, and not at all from the scientific truth 
which underlies the appearance; and this impression, let 
it be observed, is necessarily the same at all times and 
places, and for all persons on the earth. Consequently 
the expression which is derived from it must always have 
been, and must forever continue to be, universally intel- 
ligible. In whatever language of “articulately-speaking 


36 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


men” it may be said, the sun rises and sets, the most 
ignorant and stupid people will always understand what is 
meant. Hence we may safely predict that this expression 
will continue to hold its ground through all possible 
changes in the scientific exploration and comprehension of 
the phenomena which it represents. For human language 
originated in, and draws its perennial nourishment from, 
the impressions which the phenomena of the world make 
upon the senses. In the Hebrew of the Old Testament, 
however, the corresponding expression is slightly different, 
being in this form, the sun goes forth and enters in. 
Here the impression made upon the senses is somewhat 
modified by a philosophical conception in explanation of 
the phenomena which seems to have prevailed at the time, 
and which is more fully unfolded in the words of the 
Psaimist: “The sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out 
of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong mun to run a 
race.” Jor the Hebrews, as other ancient peoples, seem to 
have conceived of the sun as having his sleeping chamber 
under the earth, from which, at one door, he came forth 
in the morning, and into which, at the opposite door, he 
re entered in the evening. Closely analyzed, this expres- 
sion is found to be in part sensuous, and in part philo- 
sophical, which, no doubt, is the reason why it has not 
been able to maintain its ground, but has given place to the 
purely sensuous one which we employ. If, now, we had 
time to examine all the allusions and statements with 
respect to physical phenomena which occur in the Scrip- 
tures, we should find that they are all made in forms of 
expression similar to this by which the sun’s apparent 
motion was represented; that is to say, in forms originally 
derived from the impressions made upon the senses, but 
often modified by philosophical conceptions in explanation 
of the phenomena which prevailed among the people to 
whom the revelation was immediately communicated. It 
remains for us to furnish satisfactory evidence upon this 


THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY - 27 


point, which must consist of a few examples taken almost 
at random from literally thousands precisely similar. 

1. First, then, the inspired writers, whether of the Old 
or New Testament, certainly had no knowledge of the true 
relation of the sun to the earth and planetary system, nor 
of those which the heavenly bodies in general bear to each 
other. For it did not enter into the purely moral and 
spiritual object of Divine revelation that this knowledge 
should be communicated to them; and, as we have seen, 
any attempt to reveal a complete science would have met 
with insuperable difficulties. Consequently they, like 
other people of their time, conceived of the earth as the 
greatest of all the cosmical bodies, and of the sun, moon 
and stars as dependent upon it, and as created for the 
benefit and service of its inhabitants. In strict accordance 
with this conception they never allude to the sun as the 
centre of attraction or motion to the planetary worlds, but 
everywhere they speak of all the heavenly bodies as created 
and placed in the firmament “to give light upon the earth,” 
and to “be for signs and for seasons, and for days and 
years.” 

2. In the second place, the conception of the earth which 
uniformly appears in the Scriptures is that of a solid, | 
immovable body, with a plane, or perhaps a slightly convex 
surface. This, indeed, was the conception of it which 
universally prevailed in ancient times; and, hence, as was 
inevitable, speculation was everywhere rife as to what it 
was founded on, or by what its weight was supported. 
Some imagined one thing, and some another, but no satis- 
factory account of the matter could be given, for obviously, 
in accordance with this conception, the difficulty did not 
admit of a final solution. In order to illustrate this point, 
which has important relations to others that are to follow, 
we subjoin here an old Hindoo scheme of the universe.* 


# See Diagram in Religions De L’ Antiquité, par. J. G. Guigniaut, Vol. 
vi, plate 115, 


38 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


First of all, we have here a mathematical triangle, from 
which a glory is streaming in all directions, which among 
the Hindoos was an ever-recurring symbol of the 7rimurti, 
or three-form ineffable nature of the Deity. For after all 
that has been written in explanation of this mysterious 
symbol, it is more than probable that a dim shadow or 
reflection of the Triune Jehovah had somehow fallen upon 
the minds of this wonderful heathen people. Immediately | 
below this triangle, we have seven heavens, each of the 
superior ones resting on the next under it, which were 
believed to be the abodes of their inferior divinities, and 
of those rishis or sages who, by their knowledge and aus- 
terities, rather than by their moral virtues, had raised 
themselves to an equality with the gods. The lowest 
heaven rests upon celestial clouds; the clouds upon a 
supernal ocean; this ocean upon a solid sky or firmament ; 
the firmament upon the backs of a troop of elephants, 
which stand with their feet on the earth; the earth, which 
is convex above but flat beneath, rests upon four other 
elephants of stupendous vastness, one at each of the four 
cardinal points of the compass—the space between them 
under the earth is Patala, or Hades—these elephants stand 
on the back of an immense tortoise, which rests on the coils 
of an enormous serpent; and this serpent, finally, after 
furnishing this support, forms a circle around the whole 
vast scheme, with its extremities meeting above the triangle, 
on which it seems to hang, and by which the weight of the 
whole universe is sustained. In this way, these old 
thinkers, grappling with the difficulty just alluded to, 
represented all the spiritual and material worlds as 
depending upon one triune, ineffable, Divine Being. The 
whole scheme, as we see, combines the puerile and the 
sublime in a truly wonder ful manner. 

Now, it is very remarkable that the Christian Shot 
are wholly free from such puerilities. For they leave the 
whole subject in that insoluble mystery which is insepara- 


TIE MOSAIC COSMOGONY 39 


ble from this conception of the earth as a solid immovable 
body. In many passages of great sublimity, they rep- 
resent the question as to what it was founded on as one of 
the deep mysteries of God. In one of these He is repre- 
sented as rebuking the rebellious spirit of the patriarch 
Job in the following words: “Where wast thou when I 
laid the foundations of the earth? Deciare, if thou hast 
understanding, who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou 
knowest? Or who hath stretched the line upon it? Where- 
upon are the foundations thereof fastened? Or who hath 
laid the corner-stone thereof?” Surely every attempt to 
explain such expressions as mere figures of speech, or in 
any way consistently with the conception of the earth as 
having no foundations, must be worse than idle—a perver- 
sion of the most certain laws of language, and such that, 
if similar methods be applied to the revelations of moral 
and spiritual truth, the result must be, that we shall get 
out of the Bible just what we please. Nor are the repre- 
sentations which occur elsewhere, such as this, “He hang- 
eth the earth upon nothing,” to be interpreted in opposi- 
tion to the plain sense of the preceding quotation, and to 
innumerable other passages of similar import, as if they 
were intended to harmonize with our knowledge, that the 
earth is a globe suspended in space and upheld by the 
attraction of gravitation, but they are to be understood as 
simply expressive of the mystery of the thing as it lay 
before the minds of the sacred writers. | 

3. A third conception in explanation of physical phe- 
nomena which prevailed among the ancient Hebrews was, 
that a great body of water existed under the earth, by which 
they accounted for springs and wells. or this rising of 
water out of the ground on the tops of hills and moun- 
tain sides was a great mystery to the old world, and it is 
frequently alluded to in the Scriptures as a wonderful 
manifestation of the power of God. Thus in the follow- 
ing words: “He sendeth the springs into the valleys, 


40 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


which run [literally, which break or rise] among the 
hills.” Now, the sacred writers make no attempt to cor- 
rect this erroneous notion in science, because that was not 
included in the object for which they were inspired. On 
the contrary, they express themselves in accordance with 
it in a great multitude of places and variety of connections, 
as in the following instances: “The earth above the 
waters... The waters under the earth... The deep 
that lieth under... The fountains of the great deep.” 

4, A fourth conception of a similar character was, that 
the sky was a solid substance, or firmament properly so 
called, which also seems to have prevailed universally in 
ancient times, as it still does wherever science has made 
little or no progress. Children always have this notion, | 
and savages cannot be convinced to the contrary. The 
reason is, that the deep blue of the sky makes this im- 
pression upon the sense of sight; for how can mere void 
space have any color? Now, indeed, it is well known 
that this is due to the atmosphere which surrounds the 
earth, and the author has seen and handled a transparent 
gas, similar to the atmospheric air, but condensed and 
frozen solid by an experiment in the laboratory, the color 
of which was precisely the deep blue of the sky on a _ 
clear day. Hence the oldest names of the sky in many 
languages, and probably in all, either signify or imply 
solidity. Our word heaven -means primarily that which 
has been heaved up by the exertion of force, and which 
consequently has solidity and weight. The Hebrew Y pe 
and the Greek oreogwya, by which it is translated, and the 
Latin firmamentum, are the exact equivalents of the word 
firmament in the English Bible. They all alike signify 
that which is solid, compact, firm. They cannot be 
soundly interpreted in the sense of a void expanse, as some 
scholars, in their zeal to harmonize the Scriptural allusions 
to natural phenomena with science, would maintain. This 
interpretation is utterly inconsistent, not only with the 


THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY 41 


proper meaning of the words, but, also, as we shall see 
hereafter, with the connections in which they stand. For 
this Hebrew word, of which the Greek, Latin and English 
are, of course, mere translations, is derived from a root 
which signifies to expand by hammering out, as iron or 
gold or other metal is expanded into solid sheets. It has 
no meaning whatever apart from the idea of solidity. Ac- 
cordingly we find allusions or statements expressing or 
implying this conception in almost all the places where the 
sky is mentioned in the Bible, such as the following: 
“Hast thou with Him spread out the sky, which is strong 
and as a molten looking-glass?” For the molten mirror 
here, as elsewhere, must, of course, be understood as being 
of polished metal, and we shall see directly why this 
quality of strength is attributed to it. Again: “And they 
saw the God of Israel, and there was under His feet, as it 
were, a paved work of a sapphire stone, and, as it were, 
the body [literally, the bone] of heaven.” The manner 
in which the firmament is spoken of in the cosmogony will 
require to be examined hereafter, and need not be further 
referred to here, except to remark that the words which 
represent the birds as flying “in the open firmament of 
heaven,” are now recognized by all Hebrew scholars as a 
mistranslation : they should be, “in the face of the firma- 
ment,” that is, under it. 

5. Still another conception which prevailed among the 
Hebrews and other ancient peoples was, that above the 
firmament—in which it is expressly stated that the stars 
were set or fixed—and this, by the way, is the origin of 
the expression, the fixed stars, which we still retain, though 
in a different sense—that above the solid sky, and sup- 
ported by it, there was another great body of water,’ corre- 
sponding to “the water under the earth”, and identical with 
the supernal ocean in the Hindoo scheme. This seems to 
have been their explanation of the phenomena of rain. or 
as the water in fountains and wells was supposed to come 


42 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


from “the deep that lieth under”, so the rain was supposed 
to fall from “the waters which were above the firmament.” 
The relation which the clouds bore to rain-falls in this 
conception does not fully appear. Perhaps they were 
regarded as a kind of sieve by which the water, as it fell 
from the firmament, was separated into drops, and sprinkled 
over the earth, in order to its more effectual fertilization. 
There’ may be an allusion to this in the words: “He 
maketh small the drops of water... which the clouds drop 
and distil”. The allusions and statements in the Scriptures 
which either express or imply this conception of waters 
above the sky are almost innumerable, such as the follow- 
ing: “Praise him ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters 
that be above the heavens... The river of God which is 
full of water... A multitude of waters in the heavens” : 
and others which will be referred to in the sequel. 

But here it should be mentioned, that some of the most 
striking and significant of these allusions, both to the waters 
above the firmament and to those under the earth, occur 
in the account of the deluge, where it is stated, that “all 
the fountains of the great deep were broken up’’, so that. 
the waters under the earth burst up in boundless floods ; 
and that “the windows [literally, the flood-gates] of heaven 
were opened”, so that the waters above the firmament came 
down in mighty torrents. In this way the deluge is: ac- 
counted for ; and, if we fail to recognize this conception of 
the physical universe in which these expressions originated, 
the sublimity of this whole picture is well-nigh lost. 

6. Besides such allusions and statements as these with 
respect to great cosmical phenomena, we find similar 
references to minor particulars of which it must suffice to 
reproduce here one or two examples, as follows: “‘The 
ostrich which leaveth her eggs in the earth...and for- 
getteth that the foot may crush them, or that the wild 
beast may break them. She is hardened against her young 
ones, as though they were not hers. Her labor is vain, 


THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY | 43 


because God hath deprived her of wisdom, neither hath he 
imparted to her understanding...The daughter of my 
people is become cruel like the ostriches in the wilderness”. 
Now, it is quite true that the ostrich sometimes leaves her 
nest in the noon of the tropical day, as do other birds, to 
prevent their eggs from being actually cooked by the heat 
of their bodies, but these passages do not exhibit her true 
character and habits, as we know them from the testimony 
of a great number of perfectly trust-worthy eye-witnesses. 
For she is, in fact, an uncommonly prudent and affectionate 
mother-bird. She broods on her eggs with the utmost 
assiduity. When she leaves them for a brief space to pro- 
cure food or water, the male bird takes her place on the 
nest till she returns. Both of them fight desperately, even 
to the loss of their own lives, in defence of their young. 
They practice the most cunning stratagems to deceive the 
hunter ; for, like the lapwing and some other birds, they 
pretend to be wounded and crippled, when he approaches 
their young, and go fluttering and floundering along upon 
the ground to draw him off in pursuit of themselves. In 
all this, we do not see an example of cruelty, nor a creature 
“hardened against her young ones, as though they were 
not hers”, nor one which ‘God has deprived of wisdom 
and understanding’, 

7. Again, we find that animals of the pachyderm and 
rodent classes are prohibited by Moses as unclean on the 
ground that, though ruminants, as he pronounces them to 
be, they are not cloven-footed : “The coney, because he chew- 
eth the cud, but divideth not the hoof—he is unclean unto 
you: and the hare, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth 
not the hoof—he is unclean unto you”. Now the word 
DY, shaphan, which is here erroneously translated, coney, 
designates, as is generally agreed, a little pachyderm animal 
resembling the coney, which last, as also the hare, are ro- 
dents. Both the shaphan and the hare are still believed by 
the Arabs to be ruminants, though neither of them has the 


44 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


fourfold stomach, nor other traits of physical organization, 
which are characteristic of all animals which chew the eud. 
This popular error originated, no doubt, from the fact that 
the rodents have a peculiar motion of the mouth and 
checks, produced by their rubbing the edges of their cutting 
teeth upon each other to prevent them from growing too 
long, which gives them a striking appearance of rumina- 
tine. Now Moses, as in all similar cases, speaks of them 
according to this appearance, and does not recognize the 
scientific truth which underlies it, with which, in fact, he 
could have nothing to do. For the distinction between 
clean and unclean animals was one which all classes of his 
people had constantly to make, both for purposes of food 
and sacrifice, and in which they could discriminate no other- 
wise than by such outward signs ; and, if they had been 
allowed to disregard these signs in the case of these animals, 
it would have been well-nigh impossible to have kept up 
the distinction in other cases. 

To these it may be added, that the doing of certain 
things is claimed in Scripture as the exclusive prerogative 
of God, which science has since brought within the reach 
of human power. For the question is addressed to Job, as 
if but one answer could possibly be given to it: “Canst 
thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say unto thee, 
Here we are ?” Now, it seems impossible to choose words 
which should more exactly describe what we are doing 
every day in connection with the electric telegraph. ‘The 
lightnings do now say to us, with utmost docility, Here 
we are, send us ; and we send them with our messages from 
continent to continent and from pole to pole. 

These few examples are all that we have space to give— 
but surely they are enough—to illustrate and verify our 
main proposition, that the Scriptures always speak of 
natural phenomena in forms of expression originally de- 
rived from the impressions which they make upon the 
senses, but often modified by philosophical conceptions in 


THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY AD 


explanation of these phenomena, such as were current at 
the time when, and among the people to whom, the revela- 
tion was at first communicated. For certainly it was no 
part of their exclusively spiritual object to correct these 
impressions or conceptions, however erroneous they might 
be. The limitations imposed upon them by their great 
moral and spiritual object made it absolutely indispensable 
that they should never concern themselves with the scien- 
tific truths which underlie the phenomena of the physical 
universe, but should leave all these to be discovered and 
expounded by science. For if they had spoken of these 
things otherwise than in free and popular language, no one 
could have understood them ; and if they had undertaken 
to correct all the popular misconceptions of natural objects 
which prevailed, there would have been no end to the 
Bible—it would have been a sealed book to those who first 
received it, also to us at the present time, and to how many 
of the future generations of mankind no one can tell. 

We do not claim, however, that the views which have 
_ now been presented are free from difficulties. for it may 
be objected against them that the two spheres of faith 
and science are not absolutely exclusive, but, to some 
extent at least, do interpenctrate and overlap upon each 
other; that, in the attempt to distinguish between what is 
of moral and spiritual import in the Scriptures and that 
which is not, we must be liabie to very deleterious errors ; 
that our principle of interpretation implies a low view of 
inspiration ; and, in fine, that it cannot be applied to the 
Mosaic cosmogony without impairing its claim upon our 
faith as a Divine revelation. Now it must be conceded 
that these are grave objections and require to be fairly ap- 
preciated. 

(1) First, then, we frankly admit that some matters of 
faith do come within the purview of sciences But this is 
a difficulty which cannot be wholly avoided whatever 
views be taken of the subject. For, in any case, science 


4G WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


within her own legitimate sphere, which is that of deter- 
mining the laws of nature, may have something to say on 
the question of miracles by way of sifting the evidence 
on which they rest, upon superstition and other similar 
matters. But the principle which we here advocate has 
this great advantage over all others, that it reduces to 
a minimum the number of those questions in which it 
may be claimed that both faith and science are concerned. 
In fact, it leaves very few, and these such as are most 
easily defended, in which the most sceptical science can 
have any temptation to deny what a true faith in the word 
of God must ever maintain. 

(2) In the second place, our liability to error in dis- 
criminating between that which is moral and spiritual in 
the Word and that which is not, does not seem to be any 
greater than it is in the distinction which we have con- 
stantly to make between fundamentals, or essentials to sal- 
vation, and matters of secondary importance. TI‘or some 
things “the Scriptures principally teach;” other things 
are not principal, but subordinate. Now, whatever our 
liability to error in either case, the sole question for us is, 
whether God has not laid upon us the responsibility of 
making these distinctions. If He has, then we have the 
promise of the illumination and guidance of His Spirit to 
enable us to make the distinction aright; and, in proof 
that He has, we have the whole preceding argument, 
the force of which, however, we cannot fairly appre~ 
ciate without guarding ourselves against our natural dread 
of responsibility. For we have the most sorrowful evi- 
dence that there is a deep longing in the human heart for 
a more comprehensive revelation than God has seen fit to 
give us. Great moral and spiritual truths do not satisfy 
this morbid craving. We want a Bible alike authorita- 
tive in matters of science and matters of faith. We want 
an infallible church to determine for us what the revela- 
tion teaches, and to decide all our perplexing cases of con- 


THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY AT 


science. This is depraved human nature; and it is the 
claim to such infallibility in the Romish church which, as 
much perhaps as anything else, attracts the ignorant mul- 
titudes who submit themselves to her authority and follow 
her banner. We shall err if we think ourselves exempt 
from this temptation ; and it is indispensable that we keep 
ourselyes on guard against it, if we would estimate at 
anything like its true value the evidence, that God has 
placed us all under the solemn responsibility of distin- 
guishing between that in His word which belongs to the 
moral and spiritual object for which exclusively it was 
given, and that which is, so to speak, the necessary mate- 
rial framework in which His saving truth is exhibited to 
our minds. 

(3) In the third place, all that has just been said is of 
equal force against the objection, that our principle of in- 
terpretation implies a low view of inspiration. or the 
question which we have to meet on this point is not surely 
one of high or low, but, simply, what is the true view? 
Yet it may be observed, that neither the highest 
nor the lowest is probably the truest. The former, in- 
deed, would relieve us of the greatest amount of respons- 
ibility but the latter would go far to rob us of the word 
of God. The antecedent probability would seem to be in 
favor of a middle ground, which is proverbially the safest, 
and on which, as we think, the most thoughtful and learned 
and judicious have ever been found. 


In mediis tutissimus ibis. 


But however this may be, it certainly is both unphilo- 
sophical and unfair to hold the Scriptures responsible for 
infallible accuracy of allusion and statement in matters 
which they were not given to teach. And upon what 
rational grounds can it be demanded that they should har- 
monize with the results of modern science in other similar 
allusions with more precision than they do in those which 


48 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


they make to the rising and setting of the sun? The con- 
sistent application of our principle to all similar cases 
cannot possibly affect our views of inspiration otherwise 
than as they are necessarily affected by the interpretation 
which we must give to these typical expressions. 

(4) Finally, the objections which may be urged against 
applying this principle to the cosmogony are, no doubt, 
the most difficult of all to meet. Yet what can be more 
unreasonable than to require that the Bible, in this its first 
chapter, should treat of physical phenomena in language 
scientifically correct and adequate, when it does this 
nowhere else? Nor is it possible so to interpret its words 
without imposing upon them a sense which they were not 
intended to bear, nor without peril to great moral and 
spiritual interests; in other words, this procedure cannot 
fail to introduce far greater difficulties than those which it 
claims to remove. 

For the interpretation which is now commonly adopted 
for this purpose, and which is the only one which can be 
made in the least plausible, includes the following par- 
ticulars: Moses exhibits the creation, not as it actually 
took place, but as it appeared, or would have appeared, to 
an observer stationed on the earth: what he calls the six 
days of creation were, in fact, geologic or demiurgic eras 
of immense duration: the words create and make, in the 
record, are to be distinguished from each other, the former 
as signifying creation, properly so called, and the latter, 
formation out of pre-existing materials, or, simply, causing 
to appear. In this scheme, also, great stress is laid upon 
the order of creation, which, it is claimed, agrees substan- 
tially with the results of modern science. 

Now against all this we urge the following counter- 
objections : 

(a). It is a harsh and incongruous supposition that Moses 
intended to represent the creation; not as it actually took 
place, but as it would have appeared to an observer sta- 


THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY 49 


tioned on the earth, inasmuch as he gives us no intimation 
of any such design, and could not fail to be misunderstood, 
as he always has been; also, because, when the creation 
commenced, there was no earth upon which an observer 
could be stationed, and, if there had been, there was no 
observer to occupy it as a point of observation. 

(b) The order of creation given in the cosmogony does 
not agree with that which science requires, in that it 
represents the sun as having been created on the fourth 
day, and the plants or vegetable world on the third. Now 
we know that all vegetable organisms depend for their 
existence on the light and heat of the sun, and it is incon- 
ceivable that they could have lived and flourished through 
a whole geologic age of many thousands of years before 
the sun was created. Also it represents the earth as having 
been created on the first day. Now, the cosmical depend- 
ence of the earth, as one of the planets, upon the sun as its 
centre of attraction and motion, render it impossible to 
conceive of it as existing three or four geologic ages before 
the sun. We say nothing of light because it is now known 
that it is not exclusively dependent upon the sun. 

_(c) It was for the purpose of removing the preceding 
difficulties that the distinction was invented between the 
words create and make. For the advocates of this scheme 
call our attention to the fact that it is not said, the sun was 
created; but that he was made on the fourth day. They 
understand that he was created before, although Moses 
says no such thing, but that he did not shine through the 
chaotic clouds until the fourth period. Now this distine- 
tion rests wholly on the necessities of this scheme. No 
other evidence has ever been advanced in support of it. 
Nor can it be maintained—it is perfectly arbitrary. For 
these two words with all their derivatives are used as 
equivalents and synonyms both in this record and 
throughout the Scriptures. Of this innumerable examples 
eo ree given such as the following: “God created the 


50 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE} 


heaven and the earth... The Lord God made the earth 
and the heavens... Remember thy Creator... Let us 
kneel before the Lord our Maker.” Besides, it is said 
that God created the living creatures, where, according to 
this distinction, the word made ought to have been used, 
as it is in the case of vegetable organisms. Since, then, 
these words are used as equivalents, if one of them be thus 
limited to the sense of forming or causing to appear, the 
other may be also; in which case, for aught that appears, 
there may never have been any true or proper creation, 
but matter may be eternal. This is one of the great 
spiritual interests which are imperiled by this method of 
interpretation. 

(d) The objections to understanding the word firma- 
ment as a void expanse, have already been given in part 
by analysis of the Hebrew, Greek, Latin and English 
words. But that is an argument which only scholars can 
appreciate. We now present one of a different character, 
of the validity of which any one can judge for himself. 
Let us observe, then, in what terms Moses speaks of the 
sky in the cosmogony itself: “ And God said, Let there be 
a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide 
the waters from the waters. And God made the firma- 
ment, and divided the waters which were under the firma- 
ment from the waters which were above the firmament... 
and He set them [the sun and moon] in the firmament of 
the heaven to give light upon the earth.” Now, here is 
one of those cases previously alluded to, in which, if it be 
ever possible to determine the sense of a word from the 
connection in which it stands, this word cannot have the 
meaning of a void expanse. For the firmament is here 
represented as that which God created to divide the waters 
below from those which were above it; but there are no 
waters above the void expanse, neither are there any below 
it, since it is itself illimitable space. Besides, God is repre- 
sented as being occupied the whole of the second day in crea- 


THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY 51 


ting the firmament—He did nothing else on that day—but 
how can a void expanse, that is, nothing at all, be spoken of 
as a work of creation? And this ditficulty is greatly en- 
hanced by taking these six days in the sense of geologic 
periods of immense duration. Was the Creator occupied 
for a hundred thousand years in creating—nothing ? 
Surely it must be evident from all this that the firmament 
was conceived of by Moses as having a substance more 
solid than water, in order that it should divide one body 
of it from another; and this, by the way, gives us the 
reason why such great strength is ascribed to it in a pre- 
vious quotation, namely, because it was supposed to sustain 
the weight of a superincumbent ocean. 

(e) It only remains to point out that these six days are 
rigorously defined in the common meaning of the word by 
the explicit statement, that each of them had its morning 
and evening, and still more clearly, perhaps, by the con- 
secration of the Sabbath on the ground that God himself 
“rested on the seventh day, and was refreshed.” For if 
this seventh day be understood as of a different kind from 
the preceding six, the most fundamental law of logical 
analysis—that all the parts into which any given theme 
is analyzed must be obtained by application of one and the 
same principle—is violated. For if the first six days be 
taken as geologic ages, and the seventh as a period of 
twenty-four hours, we have seven parts which cannot be 
obtained from the theme on any one principle of analysis. 
The force of this objection will be better appreciated by 
students of logic and rhetoric when their attention is 
directed to this Mosaic scheme of creation as, beyond com- 
parison, the most beautiful specimen of analysis within the 
whole compass of literature. In fine, that the word day 
should have a different meaning in other connections, 
where it occurs without any such definition or limitation, 
as, “In the day that the Lord God made the earth and. 
the heavens,” is in strict accordance with all the laws and 


52 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


usages of language. But to impose such an indefinite 
meaning upon it in disregard of its connection, and in the 
face of this definition, is a violation of all exegetical rules, 
and even of the laws of analytic thinking, such as tends to 
unsettle and confound all right principles of interpretation, 
and of thought itself. 

These are some of the objections which lie against this 
method of harmonizing the cosmogony with the results of 
modern science. Is it not evident that it imposes upon the 
words of Moses a sense which they were never intended to 
bear, imperils some of the most important of revealed 
truths, and thus introduces far greater difficulties than 
those which it claims to remove? And who can foresee 
where this procedure applied to other parts of the Scerip- 
ture may ultimately lead us? For it is not physical 
science alone with which we have to do. Anthropology, 
also, and psychology, and biology, to say nothing of 
historical criticism, are now putting in their claims to 
govern our interpretations of the word of God—sciences 
which have a direct bearing upon its moral and-spiritual 
import. Now, when we come, for precisely similar rea- 
sons, to impose upon it every meaning which the sceptical 
tendencies of these rapidly developing sciences may at any 
time seem to require, what is likely to become of its 
deliverances concerning the fall of man, human depravity, 
the incarnation and the atonement ? 

These difficulties seem to us immeasurably greater than 
any which can arise from the most rigorous application of 
the principle of interpretation for which we here contend. 
For nothing in the cosmogony itself, or in any other part 
of the Bible, which can possibly be claimed as of any moral 
or spiritual import, is in the least affected by it. No such 
claim can be made for the length of time during which 
the work of creation was going on, nor for the order in 
which it took place, nor for the existence of a firmament, 
nor for a body of water above the firmament, provided 


THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY DS 


that God be understood to have created all things consti- 
tuting the universe. for evidently it was Moses’ chief 
object to cover this one point by the particularization and 
details of his analysis. But in all these specifications and 
particulars he speaks of the physical world in free and 
popular language, as it is spoken of everywhere else in the 
Scriptures, and in accordance with the impressions which 
it makes upon the senses, and with the conceptions of it 
which prevailed when he lived, and which, no doubt, he 
shared with all others of his time. All these, therefore, 
are to be taken as the material and human framework, so 
to speak, of this sublime picture of the creation of the 
world, in which it is revealed to our faith: That there 
is but one only living and true God; that He is a free, 
personal Being of infinite wisdom, power and goodness ; 
that by the word of His power He created all things, 
especially man, male and female, in His own likeness; 
that He consecrated one day in seven to be kept holy to 
himself by all mankind ; and whatever else there may be 
in this account which is of any moral or spiritual signifi- 
cance. It would seem that these great truths are enough 
for one short chapter in the Bible. For they lie at the 
foundation of all true religion, and stand in direct contra- 
diction to atheism, materialism, pantheism, dualism, 
polytheism, idolatry and fetishism—those deadly errors 
which have always dominated over the human mind 
wherever they have not been driven out by the revelation 
of himself which God has given us here and throughout 
the Holy Scriptures. 

In conclusion, by the adoption and consistent application 
of this principle of interpretation, the malignant enemies 
of true religion—that ‘seed of the serpent who are permitted 
to bruise the heel of the Seed of the woman, whilst He 
crushes their heads’—would be deprived of their deadliest 
fangs. For if they should find in the Scriptures innu- 
merable allusions and statements with respect to natural 


5A “WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


objects which are not in accordance with the scientific 
truths underlying the phenomena, what would it all amount 
to, more than is contained in the one expression, the sun 
rises and sets? Thus, also, science would be left free to do 
her own great and blessed work, unimpeded by fear or 
misgiving lest her ever-multiplying discoveries should 
come into conflict with revealed truth. Besides, which is 
of even greater importance, as many of her votaries as are 
at all sensible of their spiritual necessities—and such, no 
doubt, are as numerous as in any other class of people— 
would be relieved from their peculiar difficulties and 
temptations to unbelief, and would find that peace and joy 
which the gospel brings to the heart of every true 
believer. Then the aid which they would bring to its 
defense and propagation—who can estimate how great and 
effectual it would be? Moreover, the readers and inter- 
preters of the word of God would be delivered from that 
sore temptation with which they are now beset, to impose 
upon its words meanings which they were never intended 
to bear, and which without abuse they cannot be-made to 
bear—a procedure which greatly injures the conscience, 
and mightily confounds the science of hermeneutics, But 
that which perhaps is of greater importance than all other 
advantages is, that these “oppositions of science” would 
no longer dwarf the faith nor mar the peace of God’s dear 
children, as they do now in a multitude of cases, And 
hence we may expect that the faith and spiritual power 
of the church, delivered from this incubus, will erow up 
to “the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ,” 
and go forth again, as it did in primitive times, to conquer 
and save the world. 


Itt 


THE CREATION OF MAN 


And God said, Let us make Man... And the Lord God 
formed the man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his 
nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living soul... 
Male and female created He them... and called their name man 
in the day when they were created... And God created... 
every living creature that moveth .. . after their kind. 


THE origin of the human race has always been a subject 
of universal and transcendent interest. For the question 
whence we have come involves also what we are and 
whither we are going. The answer to the first of these 
determines the answers which must be given to both the 
others. Hence the statements here made in the Mosaic 
record cannot be classed with those which have just been 
considered as matters of indifference, but must be regarded 
and treated as revelations of the very deepest moral and 
spiritual significance. Moreover, the interest in this sub- 
ject was never greater than it is now, when sceptical science, 
transcending her legitimate sphere and invading the prov- 
ince of theology, calls in question the truth of this account 
of the origin of mankind, whereby the faith of multitudes 
in the word of God is shaken to its foundations. Here, 
then, it is in placefor us to examine this record with 
reference to the objections which scientists have brought 
against it. 

Before entering upon this discussion, however, it should 
be premised, that it is altogether irrational for us to submit 
our minds blindly to the general theories, hypotheses, in- 
ferences, reasonings, speculations which are so confidently 

56 


56 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


put forth in the name of science, for multitudes of them, 
of which only examples can be given here, are as unscien- 
tific as possible. We should ever bear in mind that scien- 
tists, like all other men, are fallible, and quite as much 
addicted to discursive and vain speculations. It may be 
safely affirmed that theology itself—which is saying a great 
deal—was never more given to daring and wild speculation 
than is physical science at the present time. Now, also, 
that it has become fashionable for scientists to lay before 
the public in popular lectures the evidences of their specula- 
tive conclusions, it is certain that many who hear them 
are quite as good judges of the soundness of their reason- 
ings as they themselves can possibly be. For logic is one 
and the same thing in all departments of thought and life. 
There is not one kind of logic for physical science, another 
for morals, another for political economy, another for juris- 
prudence and another for affairs. Hence, as we might ex-— 
pect, and as we find it in fact, there are no better practical 
logicians than our ablest men of business. The statesman, 
the lawyer, the theologian, and the mind that has been well 
trained in business pursuits, are abundantly competent to 
judge for themselves whether the proofs adduced in support 
of such general speculations are conclusive or not. And 
when we detect in the reasonings upon which they are 
founded, the most palpable violations of the immutable and 
universal laws of reasoning, which any intelligent person 
may often do, as we shall see in the examples which are to 
follow, we need not hesitate to reject them. But, with 
respect to the facts established by scientific observation 
and experiment, the case is altogether different. For here 
we may well accept in faith and with gratitude those vast and 
priceless treasures of knowledge with which the discoveries 
of science are constantly enriching human life. 

With this preliminary remark we proceed to observe, 
that it was evidently the intention of Moses here to repre- 
sent the creation of a real man and woman, and that his 


THE CREATION OF MAN o7 


Adam and Eve are by no means to be regarded as mere 
typical or ideal beings. 

No less evident is it that he represents this man and 
woman as the first that ever existed. or the record treats 
professedly of the origin of things in order to account for 
their existence, and with this object in view it would have 
been absurd in the highest degree that it should pass over 
in silence the origin of mankind, as it must be understood 
to do, if these were not the first of their kind. Whatever 
has been advanced in favor of the existence of pre-Adam- 
ites is altogether fanciful. For, in any case, there must 
have been a first man, whensoever and howsoever he may 
have come into being, and him we might as well call Adam, 
following the obvious intent of Moses, as by any other 
name. 

Also, it lies on the face of this record that only one 
human pair were originally created, and that from them all 
mankind have lineally descended ; for it is expressly stated 
that the name of Eve, which signifies life, was given to 
the woman “because she was the mother of all living”. 
And the unity of the race which is here asserted involves 
some of our most important spiritual interests, such as our 
universal brotherhood, our duty to love one another as 
ourselves, our hopes for the elevation of the inferior varie- 
ties, and even our common capacity of receiving the salva- 
tion of Christ. Hence it is a matter which stands above 
the legitimate sphere of scientific speculation, as one con- 
cerning which Divine revelation has spoken with authority. 

Yet, in opposition to the truth here revealed, it has been 
put forth in the name of science, that probably there were 
several original creations, and that men have spread over 
the earth from different centres of population. One reason 
which has been given for this is, that the several varieties 
of mankind, such as the white man and the negro, are so 
diverse that they cannot well be supposed to have descended 
from the same progenitors. But this is a pure speculation, 

3% 


58 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


and one which is not even plausible, when we consider, 
that all these varieties within the common species are so 
identical in life that they intermarry with each other, and 
that these intermarriages are not only fruitful in them- 
selves, but they produce a permanently fruitful offspring. 
Now, if such intermixtures should become general, which 
evidently is a possible supposition, all these differences 
would inevitably become obliterated, and what then would 
become of this argument for the diverse origin of mankind ? 
In fact, we have no good reason in the present state of our 
knowledge to doubt but that all these divergences from 
the original type have been produced, in the course of ages, 
by the influences of climate, mode of living, social and 
political circumstances, and other physical, mental and 
moral conditions. Even the color, lips, hair, and other 
peculiar features of the lowest varieties are due, as is now 
generally admitted by scientists themselves, to thousands 
of years of savage life, and of exposure to the heat of a 
vertical sun, combined with a great amount of moisture 
and malaria in the atmosphere—to these and other similar 
conditions, unmitigated by the influences of civilization and 
culture and morality upon the intellect, passions and char- 
acter, and through these upon the features and expression 
of the countenance. 

This speculation, somewhat modified, has been advocated 
also on other grounds. For it has been advanced as 
probable, that human beings originated simultaneously or 
otherwise in considerable numbers, as well as in different 
countries. The late Professor Agassiz was inclined to this 
opinion. He would have us believe that, as plants and 
animals—floras and faunas—have their peculiar districts 
or provinces where they originated, so man is governed by 
the same law of origin and distribution ; and he designates 
eight varieties of mankind as having probably originated 
in communities independently of each other in eight dis- 
tinct “natural provinces” with their peculiar faunas. But 


THE CREATION OF MAN 59 


this notion rests on no scientific evidence, but on assumed 
analogies between man and the lower orders of creation. 
For, since bees and ants must be supposed to have origi- 
nated in swarms, why not human beings, whose nature is 
so eminently social, in societies? Also, there are many 
animals and plants, such as the polar bear and the ostrich, 
the reindeer-moss and the palm, which cannot live in the 
same climates, but are strictly confined to their peculiar 
habitats, faunas and floras; and why should it be other- 
wise with the varieties of mankind? But it is evident 
that these analogies do not hold good on the very points 
on which the inference drawn from them rests. In fact, 
the resemblances here assumed are palpable differences. 
For there was a necessity that bees and ants should origi- 
nate in numbers, because they cannot maintain their exist- 
ence in single pairs. Their physical constitution, and the 
propagation of their species, necessitate their existence, 
from the first, in swarms. But there is no such necessity 
in the case of man. And though it be true that mere 
animals, to a certain extent at least, are confined to their 
peculiar climates, zones, faunas, this is not true of man, 
who goes everywhere on the earth’s surface, makes a home 
for himself wherever animal life in any form can exist, lives 
and multiplies and prospers in all climates and faunas, as 
well in that of the arctic bear and the sable as in that of 
the ostrich and the ape. The reason of this is, that human 
life is elevated far above that of all other creatures into a 
vastly more free and wide sphere by its peculiar human 
endowments. Thus we see that these analogies break 
down precisely where they must hold good in order to 
raise even a probability of the diverse origin of mankind. 
“The due consideration of the moral and _ physical 
nature of man might easily be made to refute all the 
speculation which has been advanced from the analogy of 
the animal creation in favor of a separate and independent 
origin for his several races or yarieties. Jor the mere 


60 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


animal by its nature and form is, in a certain sense, 
attached to the ground; it is incapable of an upright 
position ; it cannot vary its food; it has no power to adapt 
itself to new circumstances; it has no knowledge of dis- 
tant countries; it is of one nature, and that ‘is of the 
earth, earthy, being destitute of the higher intellectual 
powers of freedom and morality. Hence there is a fitness 
that it should be, as it is, subject to laws that are merely 
physical; that it should be the slave of nature; and that 
each department of nature, distinguished in its climate 
and vegetable productions by peculiar adaptations, should 
have adapted and confined to it peculiar forms of animal 
life. But man, in virtue of his moral and spiritual nature, 
is the lord of nature, not its slave, and he finds his highest 
development and well-being in asserting this control. He 
is endowed with a nature superior to that of the mere 
animal; his form is upright, his hands are free, Hence 
he is subject to other than mere physical laws; he can pro- 
tect himself from the heat of the tropics, and from the 
cold of the polar circles; he can vary his food according 
to the production of each locality; the geometrical ratio 
of his natural increase makes it necessary that he should 
spread his tribes away from the place of their origin; and 
whilst any portion of the earth’s surface remains unsubdued 
he feeis that his work is incomplete. Hence he justly 
claims a wider latitude and a freer range over the earth 
than the mere animal can enjoy, and refuses to be confined 
within the faunas of the lower orders, which, in fact, are 
transcended by many species of the animals themselyes.’* 

Moreover, this speculation of separate and peculiar 
faunas for the several varieties of mankind is rendered 
wholly untenable by the well-established results of lin- 


* See Princeton Review, July 1862, an article on Diversity of Species 
in the Human Race, by Prof. Chester Dewey, LL. D. but which was re- 
written and prepared for the press by the author of the present work from 
papers put into his hands by that eminent naturalist. 


THE CREATION OF MAN 61 


euistic and ethnological science. For it separates, as having 
originated independently, tribes and peoples whom we 
know from the underlying unity of their languages and 
dialects, and, in some cases, from the recorded history of 
their migrations, to have descended from the same ances- 
tors. Thus, e. g., there is nothing more certain in physical 
science than that the Hindoo or Brahman race, the Medes 
and Persians, the Greek, Latin, Keltic, Slavic and 
Germanic peoples, with all who have descended from them, 
innumerable populations which now cover a great part of 
the earth in all climates and zones, have sprung from 
ancestors who, in pre-historic times, inhabited the same 
country, dwelt in the same tents, and pastured the same 
flocks and herds, far in the wilds of central Asia. The 
case is precisely similar with all the Semitic or Arabic 
tribes, nations and peoples. Now, in the light of this one 
indisputable fact, the speculative notion of separate crea- 
tions, whether in single pairs or in communities, for the 
several varieties of mankind is altogether absurd. 

In fine, it is always unscientific to hypothecate more than 
one sufficient cause for any effect. Now the effect to be 
accounted for, in this case, is the peopling of the earth; and 
for this a single human pair, with any rate of increase which 
may be assigned, is a sufficient cause. or even in our time 
population has been known to double itself in a quarter of 
a century. In the early ages of the world the rate of in- 
crease may have been, and probably was, much greater 
from the prodigious length of human life, as recorded by 
Moses, and from the fertility newly bestowed in the bles-, 
sing: “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.” 
But even at the above rate the posterity of the first human 
pair would naturally have been, in less than a thousand 
years, ten times as great as the highest estimate that has 
ever been placed upon the population of the globe. This 
result was prevented, no doubt, by the violence and blood- 

shed which universally prevailed. 


62 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


But sceptical science no longer insists upon any such ob- 
jections as these, but, with characteristic levity, it is wholly 
occupied with one which is in flat contradiction to them all, 
namely, with the now fashionable hypothesis of evolution, 
to which, therefore, we must give special and patient at- 
tention, after one or two preliminary observations. 

Such changes of front with respect to the objections now 
and formerly urged on scientific grounds to this record, is 
eminently characteristic of science. For it is essentially 
progressive and ever advancing to new and unforeseen 
points of view, from which its previous hypotheses and 
theories are seen to be incomplete, inadequate, inconsistent 
with new facts, or, as in many cases, entirely false. Hence 
we find it strenuously advocating at one time what it as 
strenuously opposes at another; and the objections which 
it brings against the Holy Scriptures at one stage of its 
progress it is almost sure, ata subsequent stage,.to over- 
throw and trample upon. Of this, evolution affords us 
another notable example, besides those just referred to. 
For only a few years ago, it was fashionable among a 
certain class of scientists to mock at the Mosaic account of 
the deluge (which has been so wonderfully confirmed by 
the arrow-head inscriptions) on the ground that the different 
species of living creatures were so numerous that they 
never could have found room in Noah’s ark. But now 
the very same scientists are moving heaven and earth to 
convince us that there never were any such things as per- 
manent species, and that all organized beings have been 
evolved out of a few primordial forms, perhaps from a 
single one, and that ultimately from inorganic matter. 
Consequently they have dropped the above objection as a 
live coal. For since we have no inspired chronology in 
the Bible, the catastrophe of the flood may be placed as far 
back in the earth’s history as any one chooses, and, at the 
time it occurred, the several varieties of land animals may 
have been, in the process of evolution, so few as to find 


THE CREATION OF MAN 63 


ample accommodation in the ark. Thus it is that science 
is constantly dealing with her own objections. Hence 
it is altogether irrational for us, to whom our faith in the 
word of God is everything, to trouble ourselves about any 
of her sceptical errors, until we have waited long enough 
to see whether she herself will not turn against them and 
correct them, as she has already done in so many cases. 
We may be sure that we shall not have very long to wait. 
Meanwhile we need not be very hard upon these rash 
scientists. For many of them are young men who will 
erow wiser as they grow older ; and although infidels, with 
their keen instinct, everywhere welcome and defend ex- 
treme views of evolution as unanswerable arguments against 
the truth of the Holy Scriptures, yet all evolutionists are 
not infidels, nor even sceptics. Some of them make credi- 
ble professions of faith in Divine revelation, and declare 
that, as they understand it, they find it entirely consistent 
with their scientific views. Some are pronounced Theists, 
whether Christians or not, who earnestly maintain that the 
forces of nature, by which the processes of evolution are sup- 
posed to be carried on, are not in any sense the properties 
of matter, but must be conceived of as the uniform action 
or energy of the Divine will. Others, whilst regarding 
these forces as truly the properties of matter, escape the 
eulf of scepticism by holding also that nothing but a per- 
sonal or voluntary act of God could have endowed it with 
these properties. Others still exclude the human soul en- 
tirely from the hypothesis, and maintain that, for its exist- 
ence, a creative act of God must be supposed. There are 
others, however, and unfortunately not a few, who affirm 
that the forces of nature are the properties of matter in such 
a sense that it is wholly unscientific to look beyond them— 
that the question, how it came to be endowed with these 
properties, is forever excluded from the field of scientific 
investigation, and from the domain of human knowledge 
—and that matter with these properties being given, all 


G4. WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


things may be accounted for and explained. These are the 
agnostics who attribute to matter nearly all the powers 
which Theists ascribe to God, and for whom it would 
seem that materialism and atheism itself are unavoidable. 

We come now to offer some counter-objections of a 
strictly scientific or logical character, against this boasted 
hypothesis of evolution, in so far as it denies the permanence 
of species in organic nature, and claims that the human 
race has been evolved out of some pre-existing animal 
form ; all which stands in avowed opposition to the Mosaic 
account of the creation of man, and to the statement, so 
often repeated, that every living creature was made ‘after 
its kind.’ But in order to this, it is necessary to enter 
here into some discussion of the essential nature and proper 
definition of species in organized beings. 

And, first, the principle of classification, as is well known, 
lies at the foundation of science, and of human knowledge. 
Hence we find it everywhere represented in the languages 
of mankind; for every common term is the name of a 
class. Now classes are formed by the mental processes of 
abstraction, comparison and generalization. For whenever 
we direct our attention to individual objects, we immedi- 
ately begin, by an instinct of reason, to compare them with 
each other, and to note their points of resemblance and 
difference. Those which resemble each other in the ereat- 
est number of particulars we group together, and thus form 
our primary or lowest classes. Such a class of individuals 
is termed a species, which, in organized beings, corresponds 
to “kind” in the Mosaic record. These primary classes 
we now compare with each other, noting their points of re- 
semblance and difference, and group them into classes of 
classes. Such a class is called a genus. Applying the 
same process to these higher classes with similar results, 
when we have carried it as far as possible, we are finally 
arrested at one highest of all classes, which is that of 
undifferenced being. The word being, as denoting simply 


THE CREATION OF MAN ' 65 


that which exists, and the word thing, which means 
whatever can be thought of, are different names for the 
_ highest class which it is possible to form, unless the latter 
be regarded as the most comprehensive. Now, among all 
these classes, and in every branch of science alike, that 
which bears the name of species, being composed of’ indi- 
vidual objects having the greatest resemblance to each 
other, is the most important, because upon it every system 
_ of classification rests. 

But here a great difficulty is encountered in determining 
the limits of species from the fact, that a great number of 
individual objects, especially in organic nature, are found 
on inspection of their mutual resemblances to shade off by 
almost or quite insensible gradations, and even to overlap, 
so to speak, upon each other. Thus, the Virginia mocking- 
bird, one of the thrushes, and the most richly endowed of 
all singing birds, seems to partake of the nature of the 
hawk ; to a certain extent it is a bird of prey, for, in its 
wild state, it will kill and eat a sparrow as naturally as 
does the sparrow-hawk. In addition to this, creatures 
which bear the- closest resemblance to each other in their 
outward appearance, are often found to be very different in 
their inward structure; and those which are most alike 
both in appearance and structure often differ greatly in 
their physiological characters,in life, and life’s powers, fac- 
ulties and manifestations. The Saint Bernard and terrier 
dogs, e. g., have little outward resemblance, but their life is 
so nearly or quite identical, that it can be freely propagated 
between them, and their offspring are also fertile, one with 
another. On the other hand, the Muscovy and common 
ducks bear a much stronger resemblance to each other, yet 
are they so diverse in life that, although it can be propa- 
gated between them, their offspring is a hybrid or mule, in 
which consequently the development of life and variation 
on that line comes to an end. Also it has been often 
asserted by evolutionists that the Caucasian man of the 


66 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE: 


highest type and the negro of the lowest differ from each 
other in appearance and structure more than the negro and 
orang or chimpanzee; but the former are so completely 
identical in life that it is not only propagated between 
them with the utmost freedom, but their offspring, one with 
another, are as fertile as themselves ; whilst the negro and 
orang are so diverse in life that it cannot be propagated 
between them at all. Thus it appears that the veiled 
mystery of life is most salient, and its distinctions most 
capable of being apprehended, in the phenomena of its 
reproduction. 

For these and other all-controlling reasons, our elder 
naturalists, with hardly an exception, agreed in regarding 
as subordinate all other points of resemblance and difference 
for the purpose of determining the limits of species in the 
organic world, and in attaching a paramount importance to 
the physiological traits of life’s organs, functions, operations 
and manifestations. Thus it was that Linneeus, the founder 
of the modern science of natural history, selected those 
organs in plants by which their life is propagated, and, 
neglecting all other resemblances and differences, erected 
upon them his all-comprehending system of classification. 
Thus also the naturalists of succeeding times have classified 
all known organized beings, grouping together in the same 
species all that were possessed of such a unity of life as 
that it could be propagated between them in a permanently 
fruitful form, and, in different species, all between which it 
could not be so propagated. Not that experiments upon 
this point were actually made in one case out of a thou- 
sand, but hybridity was universally regarded as a test of 
species in this sense, that all organized beings which might 
be proved capable of propagating, one with another, a per- 
manently fruitful offspring, should be classed in the same, 
and all that were incapable of this, in different species. 
The divergences arising from intermixture and other cir- 
cumstances among the individuals of the same species were 


“THE CREATION OF MAN 67 


also made the basis of certain fluctuating subdivisions 
which, with the strictest regard to etymological propriety, 
were termed varieties. 

Now these statements furnish us with a definition of 
species in the organic world which is sharply determinative 
of the extent and limits of the idea; for thus we see that 
such species can be nothing else but that unity of life in a 
group of organized beings, in virtue of which they resem- 
ble each other, and are normally capable of propagating 
with each other a permanently fruitful offspring. And 
this definition was substantially concurred in by all natural- 
ists, with hardly an exception, until the rise of evolution, 
as we have it in the following passage from “ the still clas- 
sical work of Cuvier.” 

“The birth of organized beings is the greatest mystery 
of the organic economy and of all nature. ...All or- 
ganized beings produce similar ones; otherwise, death 
being the natural consequence of life, their species would 
not endure.... There is no proof that all the differences 
_ which now distinguish organized beings are such as might 
have been produced by circumstances: all that has been 
advanced upon this subject is hypothetical. Experience 
seems to show, on the contrary, that, in the actual state of 
things, varieties are confined within rather narrow limits ; 
and, so far as we can retrace antiquity, we perceive that 
these limits were the same as at present. We are obliged, 
then, to admit of certain forms which, since the origin of 
things, have been perpetuated without exceeding these lim- 
its ; and all the beings appertaining to one of these forms 
constitute what is called a species. Varieties are accidental 
sub-divisions of species.... Fixed forms which are per- 
petuated by generation distinguish their species. . . Gen- 
eration being the only means of ascertaining the limits to 
which varieties may extend, species should be defined, the 
reunion of individuals descended one from the other, or 


68 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


from common parents, or from such as resemble them as 
closely as they resemble each other.” * 

To this should be added from another source: “ Allied 
species produce between themselves an infertile offspring : 
remote species of the same genus are those between which 
hybrids are never produced.” 

Now it is admitted on all hands, for it is undeniable, 
that this characterization of species, in which, as has been 
said, all the elder naturalists are substantially agreed, marks 
a real and most important distinction in the actual state of 
things, and represents a vast range of facts in the organic 
world. or an immense number of organized beings can 
and do interbreed with each other, producing offspring 
which are no less fruitful than themselves; and a far 
greater number either cannot interbreed with each other at 
all, or their offspring are infertile. Here, then, we raise 
against evolution the question, ought not the classifications 
of science to mark, signalize, and emphasize this broad 
physiological difference between organized beings? Can 
true science utterly ignore it in her classifications, as if it 
did not exist? Yet this is just what all evolutionists are 
obliged to do. The fact, indeed, is so undeniable, and of 
such vast significance that they cannot help recognizing it 
from time to time, but the point here made against them 
is, that in their so-called scientific classifications, the prime 
object of which is to mark and emphasize resemblances 
. and differences, they utterly ignore it, as if it did not exist. 
Is this true science? 

The hypothesis itself, however, is such that its advocates 
cannot do otherwise. or it is the assumption that there 
is no such distinction in permanence ; that, wherever it 
exists at present, it is the result of circumstances ; that all 
the differences between existing species have arisen through 
gradual divergences, in the course of innumerable ages, 


* Animal Kingdom, edited by Dr. Carpenter. Introduction, pp. 18, 19. 


THE CREATION OF MAN 69 


among the descendants of common parents, which formerly 
were, and whose offspring may again become, capable of 
interbreeding with each other. Consequently they spare 
no pains to eliminate it from their characterization of spe- 
cies. For although for obvious reasons, they commonly 
fight shy of precise definitions, yet they explain with suffi- 
cient clearness the new meaning which they would, if they 
could, attach to the word. Thus Professor Huxley :* 

“Tf, in astate of nature, you find any two groups of — 
living beings which are separated from each other by some . 
constantly recurring characteristic, I don’t care how slight 
and trivial, so long as it is defined and constant, and does 
not depend upon sexual peculiarities, then all naturalists 
agree in calling them two species; that is what is meant 
by the word species—that is to say, it is, for the practical 
naturalist, a mere question of structural differences.” + 

Now, all this is very curious. Jor by this expression, 
“a mere question of structural differences,’ he excludes 
from consideration, in the determination of species, all such 
as are physiological and biological, in other words, all the 
phenomena of life, among which, of course, are those of its 
propagation, which, as we have seen, are the most signifi- 
cant of all the differences by which organized beings are 
distinguished from each other. Moreover, thesephenom- 
ena of life are just those which distinguish living crea- 
tures as such, the very objects to be classified. - Yet are 
they to have no weight or consideration whatever in deter- 
mining the species of such creatures. These are to be 
classified without regard to that which makes them what 

*In this discussion, we have preferred to quote from Prof. Huxley, 
rather than from Herbert Spencer, Darwin, Wallace, and others, because 
he is acknowledged to be one of the ablest, best known and outspoken of 
them all, and he sees more clearly than others the difficulties under which 
the hypothesis labors, and more frankly admits them. Also he repre- 
sents what he himself has observed and verified, whilst Spencer deals in 
“glittering generalities,” and with facts as he has learned them mostly 


from hearsay. 
t Huxley’s Origin of Species, p. 104. 


70 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


they are. This is what evolutionists call science! Also, 
the statement that “all naturalists agree” in determining 
species by “any constantly recurring characteristic no mat- 
ter how slight and trivial,” is as far from the truth as 
possible. The truth is, that no naturalist, not even Pro- 
fessor Huxley himself, practically distinguishes species by 
any such test as this. For it would require him to class 
the white man and the negro in different species on the- 
ground of the “constantly recurring characteristic” of 
their opposite colors. But this neither he nor any other 
evolutionist pretends to do, for it is excluded by their 
fundamental hypothesis ; and in the work already referred 
to, he says explicitly : 

“J am one who believes [sic] that, at present, there is 
no evidence whatever for saying that mankind sprang origin- 
ally from any more than a single pair ; I must say that I 
cannot see any good ground whatever, or any tenable sort 
of evidence, for believing that there is more than one 
species of man.” * 

He has forgotten the constantly recurring though trivial 
characteristic of color, by which the white and the black 
man are distinguished from each other. Thus he finds it 
impossible to abide by his own characterization of species. 
In fact, he loses sight of it on almost every page of the 
work in which it is so formally laid down, and uses the 
word as including physiological traits, which he has ex- 
pressly excluded from consideration. Thus, e. g., he says: 
“Hybrids are crosses between distinct [but allied] species.” 
How comes it that hybrids are never produced otherwise 
than between distinct species, if hybridity has nothing to do 
with the determination of species?” Again: “ Between 
species, in many cases [remote species] you cannot succeed 
in obtaining the first cross.” Why so, if the reproduction 
of life is never considered in separating species from each 
other ? Once more: “ Here is a feature, then, great or small 


* Origin of Species, p. 113. 


THE CREATION OF MAN Te 


as it may be, which distinguishes natural species.” The fea- 
ture includes the two facts just stated, and surely it is not an 
open question, whether it is “great or small.” But, fur- 
ther, what does he mean by “natural species?” Evidently 
such as can produce no offspring at all between them, or 
their offspring are hybrids; and there is no other kind of 
species, unless evolutionists have discovered some which 
are unnatural, of which they have not, and probably will 
not claim the credit. For certainly true science knows 
nothing of any but natural species, the distinctions between 
which exist in nature. Here, now, we have on a single 
page * three examples, taken at random from innumer- 
able others, in which Professor Huxley recognizes physio- 
logical distinctions between species, and uses the word 
precisely as defined by Cuvier and the elder naturalists, 
except that they had no occasion to put “natural” before 
it. We sce in these quotations and criticisms the sense 
which evolutionists, in the interest of their hypothesis, 
would attach to the word species, and how utterly unable 
they themselves are to use it in this sense from the opposi- 
tion which they everywhere encounter in the stubborn facts 
of nature. 

We come now to examine the arguments upon which 
they rely for the overthrow of the old definition of species, 
and for the establishment of their hypothesis, in the course 
of which we shall see with what reason Cuvier could say 
in the words previously quoted: “There is no proof that 
all the differences which now distinguish organized beings 
are such as may have been produced by circumstances. 
All that has been advanced upon this subject is hypotheti- 
eal.” For these statements are as true now as when put 
on record by that great man: to the present day all that 
has been advanced in favor of evolution, as an explanation 
of the origin of man and of life, is “ hypothetical.” 


* Huxley’s Origin of Species, p. 107. 


fey WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


There are but two such arguments, each of which, how- 
ever, consists of a multitude of particulars. 

The first of these is the argument from analogy, which 
is thus stated by Professor Packard :* 

“Reasoning a priori we assume that organisms, both 
plant and animal, have been created [developed] cut of 
pre-existent forms, because it agrees with the general course 
of nature. All agree that the solar system was evolved ; 
that the earth was evolved....that the nebular hy poth- 
esis Is necessary to account for the origin of our earth.” 

Hence evolutionists assume that plants and animals haye 
been produced by this process of evolution. In so far, 
then, as the hypothesis rests upon analogy, it can be no 
better characterized than it is in these words of one 
of its advocates, as a mere ‘assumption.’ But this ar- 
gument includes also the many cases in which organic 
forms which had been hastily regarded as belonging 
to different species, have been discovered, upon more 
perfect knowledge of them, to be mere varieties of the 
same, as the squirrels of tropical America, e. g-, have been 
reduced from fifty-nine to twelve species. Evolutionists 
Jay much stress on such discoveries, as if they indicated 
that the differences between all species might, conceivably 
at least, be thus reduced. But here, as in many other 
cases, their logié is manifestly at fault; for all that such 
reductions can prove is, that naturalists are liable to error, 
and have erred, through imperfect knowledge, as was un- 
avoidable, in classing as of different, what were in truth 
varieties of the same species. Nor does it matter how 
many more such discoveries may be made, in so far as 
evolution is concerned, because whatever definition of spe- 
cies be adopted, in ten thousand cases for each one of 
them, it must still and forever remain as impossible to 
reduce the differences between all organized beings to a 


* The New York Independent, Feb. 5, 1880. 


THE CREATION OF MAN 73 


unity as it is for the lion to interbreed with the cow, or 
the mouse with the elephant. 

But, in addition to this, we must ever bear in mind that 
this whole argument from analogy, however numerous the 
particulars it may include, can never, with its utmost logi- 
cal force, prove that anything is so; the most that it can 
do is to prove that it may be so, and to raise an antecedent 
probability in its favor. For it was thus that Leverrier 
reasoned from many strong analogies to the probability 
that there was a certain undiscovered planet on the out- 
skirts of our solar system; but he did not pretend that 
this was to be received as a truth of science, until he had 
discovered and could show his planet, Neptune, through 
his telescope. Upon this evidence from analogy, therefore, 
whilst scientists may fairly accept evolution as a good 
working hypothesis, which is full of suggestion, and which 
may lead, as it has led, to many important discoveries, yet 
they cannot logically claim for it the character of a scien- 
tifie truth which others are obliged to accept, and with 
which all other known truths must be harmonized, until it 
shall have been demonstrated by proofs of an entirely 
different character. This, however, they themselves will 
frankly concede. 

Accordingly, they bring forward another argument, 
namely, that the hypothesis will account for, explain, ren- 
der intelligible a vast number of facts in nature, especially 
the resemblances and differences between organized beings. 
These facts are such as the following: The manner in 
which these differences and resemblances shade off into, 
and overlap upon each other by almost insensible grada- 
tions, especially as this has been disclosed by late discoy- 
eries of fossil remains; the changes which have been 
observed in organized beings under the influence of circum- 
stances, such as those by which it is admitted the various 
races or types of mankind have become distinguished from 
each other; the origination of new forms in the lapse of 


74 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE” 


ages, and the perishing of such as were ill adapted to, and 
the preservation of those which were in harmony with, 
their changing physical conditions and surroundings ; the 
existence of rudimentary organs—the rudimentary human 
hand in the whale’s flipper; the male mamme which, 
according to evolutionists, have been dwarfed, or have 
fallen into a state of atrophy, by ages of disuse; all the 
female organs in the male, and all the male organs in the 
female, in a similar rudimentary or atrophied condition— 
these are only a few examples of a vast multitude of facts 
in organic nature which it is claimed that this hypothesis 
will account for and render intelligible. 

Now we must admit that this argument, which is strictly 
inductive in its character, would, if it were without flaw 
and perfect, be demonstrative; that is to say, if the hypoth- 
esis were in itself conceivable, and if it would fairly ac- 
count for all the facts to which it properly applies, and if 
these facts could be accounted for in no other way, then we 
should be obliged to accept evolution as a scientific truth, 
because it would rest on evidence precisely similar and 
equal to that upon which we receive the Newtonian theory 
of gravitation. But, unfortunately for its advocates, all 
these three necessary conditions are wanting, as we now 
proceed to show 

In the first place, then, it is not claimed that it will ac- 
count satisfactorily for all the facts to which it properly 
applies. It is admitted on all hands that it labors under 
as yet unsolved difficulties, some of which are of a strictly 
physical character. Among these is the fact, previously 
referred to, that individuals of different species can produce 
either no offspring at all, or their offspring are infertile. 
For what good reason can be given why the descendants of 
the same parents should ever come to be normally incapa- 
ble of continuous propagation with each other. Mr. 
Darwin, indeed, has endeavored to account for it, but in 
such a lame and impotent manner that he has not been able 


- 


THE CREATION OF MAN 75 


to satisfy his brother evolutionists. This, as we shall see 
directly, is frankly admitted by Professor Huxley. There 
are also a vast number of other facts, and these the most 
important of all, namely, the facts of human conscious- 
ness, of which evolution gives us no rational account. This 
also is fully admitted by some evolutionists, who, there- 
fore, exclude these facts and the human soul entirely from 
their hypothesis, and hold it in application only to the or- 
ganic world, including the physical nature of man. But 
the greatest number of its advocates, and all the ablest lo- 
gicians among them, steadfastly refuse to make this excep- 
tion ; for they see plainly enough that, if it can be applied to 
the mental faculties of animals, wonderful as these are, no 
scientific interest requires that those of men should be ex- 
cluded. In fact, this exception is made by those only who 
try in this way to conserve their religious faith. But 
inasmuch as this objection against the hypothesis, that it 
does not rationally account for the phenomena of conscious- 
ness, has been frequently and strongly pressed by others, 
we need do little more than state it here. 

Our mental faculties, then, and their operations—reason, 
sensibility and will—our conceptions of abstract, universal 
and necessary truths ; our ideas of the true, the beautiful 
and the good; our moral nature, the distinctions we make 
between right and wrong ; our capacity of the knowledge 
of the invisible, supersensual, spiritual world, and, pre- 
eminently, of God ; our consciousness of freedom, of moral 
obligation, and of immortality—none of these great salient 
facts can be accounted for by the operation of the uniform 
forces of nature, nor by the properties of matter whatever 
“potentialities” be ascribed to it, nor in any way consist- 
ently with evolution. Its advocates do, indeed, make 
spasmodic efforts to explain the phenomena of our moral 
nature ; but the best they can do is to tell us that our dis- 
tinctions between right and wrong are nothing but the 
summation or result of the experiences of good and evil 


76 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


through which our ancestors have passed, in the course of 
innumerable ages, transmitted to us their descendants by 
the principle or law of heredity ; in other words, that what 
was in them a distinction based upon their experience be- 
comes in us, under the operations of this law, a distinction 
independent of and prior to our experience. In the same 
way, they strive to account for the operation of animal in- 
stinct. But in both they signally fail. or it is incredible 
that bees, ¢. g., which have made no improvement since they 
first began to be observed, should have learned, by manifold 
experiments and innumerable failures, how to construct 
their perfect hexagonal cells, which combine the greatest 
possible mechanical strength and capacity of contents with 
the least possible expenditure of material and waste of room : 
otherwise, their intellectual faculties, for such purposes at 
least, must be regarded as vastly superior to those of human 
beings. A similar remark is equally true of the operations 
of an ant-hill, of the flight of birds of passage, of the un- 
erring return of the young fish from their wanderings in 
the ocean to the river or stream where they were spawned 
and hatched, and of all the phenomena of instinct properly 
so called. Much more is this explanation inadequate to 
the phenomena of the conscience in man, the most funda- 
mental and essential elements of which, namely, its moral 
character and its authority, it leaves wholly unexplained. 
For it does not touch our consciousness of moral obligation, 
which obviously is not contained in, and consequently can- 
not be derived from, the mere experience of good and evil, 
however prolonged through innumerable generations. 
Neither does it touch the authority with which the con- 
science delivers its sacred. oracles, that “ categorical impera- 
tive,” the awful impression of which the philosopher Kant 
could compare to nothing but that of the starry firmament. 
In fact, this explanation reduces one of the greatest of all 
mysteries—that of “the voice of God in man”—to a faculty 
of mere prudential wisdom, to man’s selfish regard for his 


-. ~~ 


THE CREATION OF MAN rie 


own happiness. This is not to account for facts, but to 
deny, or at least to ignore them. In like manner our sensi- 
bility to the charms of sublimity and beauty, the admira- 
tion we feel for an act of noble self-sacrifice, the promptings 
of great and heroic souls, our indignation at injustice, op- 
pression and cruelty—all these and other similar facts of 
consciousness are rationally incomprehensible on the hy- 
pothesis of our derivation from ape-like animals in which no 
such susceptibilities have ever appeared. Above all, the 
phenomena of the human will, especially its freedom, can 
never be accounted for by the properties of matter, nor 
from the uniform operation of natural forces, nor in any 
way consistently with evolution. or, if we know any- 
thing, it is that the will of man is not subject to the uni- 
formity of natural laws, and that it is dvroxvyroy, a self-moy- 
ing, self-directing power. Human life, as depending upon 
and proceeding from the will, does not run in fixed grooves, 
like the wheels of a steam-engine. We have the power to 
choose for ourselves whether we will do right or wrong, 
which is a freedom absolutely inconceivable as a property 
of matter, or as a quality of the natural forces. 

Now in this state of the case, with such an array of most 
significant facts which evolution does not rationally account 
for, and with many others which, it is conceded, present as 
yet unsolved difficulties, the fact, that it does account for a 
great number of phenomena in organic nature is not suffi- 
cient evidence to establish it as a scientific truth. For 
other hypotheses, as is well known, have been maintained 
on precisely similar grounds, and yet have subsequently 
been found untenable. In astronomy, e. g., the Ptolemaic 
or geocentric construction of the solar system was univer- 
sally accepted for thousands of years, because it accounted 
for a vast number of celestial phenomena; also the 
“ Vortices” of Descartes accounted for almost as many of 
them as the theory of gravitation itself. Yet both of these 
celebrated hypotheses have long been universally rejected, 


Lomb WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


and few persons are now aware of what a place in science 
they formerly occupied. Such, therefore, notwithstanding 
the number of facts which it is claimed that it will explain, 
may hereafter be the fate of evolution. Professor Huxley is 
well aware of this, and prudently hedges himself as follows: 

“You must understand that I accept it [evolution] pro- 
visionally, in exactly the same way that I accept any other 
hypothesis. Men of science do not pledge themselves to 
creeds... There is not a single belief that it is not a 
bounden duty with them to hold with a light hand, and to 
part with cheerfully the moment it is really proved to be 
contrary to any fact, great or small.” * 

Yet all this is in palpable contradiction to what imme- 
diately precedes, for it is difficult to conceive of any words 
in which he could more emphatically pledge himself to the 
creed of evolution than as follows : 

“T think it is Mr. Darwin’s hypothesis or nothing ; that 
either we must take his view, or look upon the whole of 
organic nature as an enigma, the meaning of which is 
wholly hidden froin us.” + 

But it is very far from being true that “ it is either Mr. 
Darwin’s hypothesis or nothing.” For, in the second place, 
all the facts which can be accounted for by evolution, are 
equally well accounted for on another and totally different 
hypothesis, namely, that of the distinct and independent 
creation of species, as defined by Cuvier and the elder 
naturalists. Evolutionists may be safely challenged to 
produce a solitary fact which is inconsistent with this latter 
hypothesis. Certain it is that such a fact they have never 
yet produced. They contend, indeed, that this view of 
creation is rendered improbable by many facts, and some 
of them assert that it is utterly overthrown by late dis- 
coveries among fossil remains of intermediate forms, which, 
as they claim, render the transition of one species into 


* Origin of Species, p. 145. + Ib. p. 144. 


THE CREATION OF MAN 79 


another an easy matter. Thus Professor Huxley, in his 
New York lectures, ventures to assert that if but one 
more “missing link” should be discovered, namely, a 
horse with five toes, “evolution would be demonstrated.” 
But here again he sets all logic at defiance. For what if 
this intermediate form were found? Nay, what if any 
number of such approximations should be discovered, and 
the structural differences between species should be reduced 
to a minimum, how could that “demonstrate” that any 
one species had been actually derived from, or evolved out 
of another, whilst the bar of their inability to interbreed 
remains between them, and whilst their closest resem- 
blances can be fully accounted for on another hypothesis ? 
How many things bear such resemblances, which yet are 
not pretended to have sprung one from another? ‘The 
planets of our solar system are very much alike, but this 
does not even suggest that Venus has been evolved out of 
the earth, or Mars out of Jupiter. Such is the logic of 
evolutionists, by which they “ demonstrate” their hypoth: 
esis! 

But, if we concede that either of these hypotheses will 
equally well account for all the facts in question—which, 
with the phenomena of human consciousness before us, 
is a vast concession—there would still remain a logical 
necessity for an experimentum crucis, a crucial test, that 
is, a fact verified and established, which could be accounted 
for by one of them, but not by the other, in order to 
determine, on scientific evidence, which of them is to be 
preferred. Now the only such crucial test which is con- 
ceivable as resulting in favor of evolution is an actual 
observed and verified transition or transformation of one 
species into another, such as that of a dog into a cat, or 4 
cow into a bison, an ass into a horse, or a chestnut tree 
into an oak—such a transition, or the development of a 
new species out of a pre-existing one, so that their mem- 
bers shall be incapable of crossing breed with each other. 


80 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


In order that this hypothesis should rise even to the char- 
acter of a scientific theory, at least one beast must be ob- 
served to have become a man, or one animal or one yege- 
table to have been transformed into another of a different 
or new species. But no such transformation has ever been 
known to take place. No evolutionist pretends to have 
discovered this crucial test. In two or three cases, 
indeed, doubtful claims have been put forth to the 
evolution of new species from pre-existing ones among 
the lowest organisms; but, in all these cases, the species 
have been distinguished by mere structural divergences, 
and the question, whether they could interbreed, or not, 
upon which in this argument everything depends, has 
never been tested. Professor Huxley has given this sub- 
ject an extended discussion, in which we shall see more 
fully that he constantly uses the word species, not in the 
sense in which he himself has defined it, but altogether as 
defined by Cuvier and the elder naturalists, and also that 
his admissions abundantly confirm our previous statements. 

“We have seen,” he says, “ that breeds, known to have 
been derived from a common stock by selection, may be as 
different in their structure from the original stock as spe- 
cies may be different from each other. But is this true of 
the physiological characteristics of animals? Do the phys- 
iological differences of varieties amount in degree to those 
observed between forms which naturalists call distinct 
species? [in direct contradiction to what he tells us in his 
own definition, as previously quoted, that “all naturalists 
agree” in classing as of distinct species individuals 
separated by mere structural differences.] This is most 
important for us to consider... For there is a most singu- 
lar circumstance in respect to natural species [what other 
than natural species are known in science and nature?] at 
least about some of them [no exception has ever been 
named] and it would be sufficient for the purposes of this 
argument if it were true of only one of them, but there 


THE CREATION OF MAN SI 


is, in fact, a great number of such cases [all without ex- 
ception |—and that is, that similar as they may be to mere 
races or breeds [ varieties] they present a marked peculiari- 
ty in the reproductive process...{[f you take members 
of two distinct species [again] however similar they may 
be to each other, and make them breed together, you will 
find a check... If you cross two such species with each 
other, then—although you may get offspring in the cross 
[allied species] yet, if you attempt to breed from the pro- 
ducts of that crossing, which are called hybrids. . . the 
result is that, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, 
you will get no offspring at all... Between species, in 
many cases, you cannot succeed in obtaining the first 
cross [remote species]... This is a very extraordinary 
circumstance. One does not see why it should be [sure 
enough—no evolutionist can—and here he frankly ad- 
mits that evolution cannot account for this fact]... Here 
is a feature, then, great or small as it may be [no small 
about it] which distinguishes natural species [again] of 
animals. Can we find any approximation to this in the 
different races [varieties] known to be produced by select- 
ive breeding from a common stock? Up to the present 
time the answer to that question is absolutely a negative 
one. As far as known at present, there is nothing ap- 
proximating to this check... Here you see is a physiolo- 
gical contrast between races [varieties] and natural species 
[again]... By selective breeding we can produce struc- 
tural divergences as great as those of species [once more] 
‘but we cannot produce equal physiological divergences * 
... Mr, Darwin, in order to place his views beyond the 
reach of all possible assault, ought to be able to demon- 
strate the possibility of developing from a particular stock 
by selective breeding two forras which should be unable to 
cross, one with another, or whose cross-breed offspring 
should be infertile, one with another... Now it is- ad- 
* Origin of Species, pp. 104-111. 
Ax 


82 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


mitted on all hands that, at present, so far as experiments 
have gone, it nas not been found possible to produce this 
complete physiological divergence ... If you have not 
done that, you have not shown that you can produce, by 
the cause assumed [evolution] all the phenomena which 
you have in nature...If it could be proved, not only 
that this has not been done, but that it cannot be done 
[so, by what law of logic does he require us to prove a 
negative?|... If it could be demonstrated that this is 
impossible [sic]... I hold Mr. Darwin’s hypothesis would 
be utterly shattered.” * 

Now, we have been compelled to leave out much of this 
lonz-winded discussion, which is loaded with verbiage, as 
it would seem if it were not for the fatal admissions, for 
the purpose of disguising difficulties, but we have given 
in the author’s own words his exact meaning, as any one 
may see by reference to the pages quoted. Here, then, we 
have it fully and expressly admitted that the crucial test 
which the hypothesis of evolution requires has not been 
discovered, and we are gravely challenged to prove the 
negative, that its discovery is impossible, as if the burden 
of proof rested upon its opponents, and not as it does 
wholly upon its advocates! or, to all intents and _pur- 
poses, the hypothesis is “utterly shattered” whilst the proof 
which is admitted to be indispensable to establish it cannot 
be produced. No, the evolutionists do not pretend to 
have discovered their crucial test. They tell us that they 
have not yet had sufficient time, for one such transforma- 
tion of species may require many thousands or even mil- 
lions of years. ‘Thus in the words of Professor Jevons : 

“The deeper differences between plants have been pro- 
duced by the differentiating action of circumstances during 
millions of years, so that it would naturally require 
millions of years to undo this result, and prove experi- 


* Ib. pp. 140-141, 


THE CREATION OF MAN 83 


mentally that the forms can be approximated together 
again.” * 

Here, also, it is fully admitted that the hypothesis is a 
mere speculation which cannot be experimentally, that is 
to say, scientifically proved, at least, for millions of years 
tocome. But give us time enough, they say, and we will 
show you plenty of such transformations. Well, we will 
give them all the time they ask, and a million of years 
hence, when they shall claim to have discovered one such 
fact in organic nature, we will—examine it. 

Having now shown that the hypothesis of evolution 
does not account for a multitude of facts to which it prop- 
erly applies and that these facts can all be accounted for 
on an entirely different hypothesis, we come now to 
demonstrate that the third and final one of the three con- 
ditions necessary for its establishment as a truth of science, 
namely, that it should be conceivable in itself, is wholly 
wanting. For it necessarily involves and implies particu- 
lars, details, processes of transition or transformation 
which can, by no possibility, be represented to the mind, 
of which no conception can be formed, which are abso- 
lutely unthinkable. Among these are the origin of vege- 
table life from inorganic, dead matter, that of animal life, 
with its capacities of pleasure and pain and all its mental 
faculties, from the vegetable, the transformation of sexless 
into sexual beings, the separation of the two sexes, pre- 
viously combined in the same individual, into individuals 
of either sex alone, the transition of insensible, irrational, 
involuntary, impersonal, unmoral things into sensible, 
rational, voluntary, personal, moral beings. Not one of 
these transformations is conceivable, or thinkable, in the 
several steps, details, processes which it necessarily implies. 
Nor is the difficulty lessened, though it is veiled and dis- 
guised—on the contrary, it is vastly increased—by the 


* Principles of Science, p. 414. 


84 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


immense length of time which is required and allowed for 
each of them. Especially, with respect to the evolution 
of sexual out of sexless forms, we have a logical right to 
ask, what was their condition at each step or stage of the 
transformation? In what conceivable way could their 
existence have been preserved, and their species, if species 
they can be said to have had, propagated, during those 
hundreds of thousands of years whilst they were neither 
one thing nor the other, but partly sexual and partly sex- 
less forms? Let any one undertake to represent to his 
imagination the procedure and details of what must be 
supposed to have taken place, and assuredly he will find 
that they are inconceivable. Again, the separation of the 
two sexes—what were the several steps and particulars of 
the process? Whilst that which is now the male was 
ceasing to bear children ; whilst his mamme, now dwarfed 
and atrophied by ages of disuse, were ceasing to give suck ; 
whilst all the other female organs in the male were thus 
falling into a state of atrophy: in like manner, whilst 
that which is now the female was beginning to bear sepa- 
rately ; whilst her bosom was in the process of develop- 
ment; whilst all the male organs in her body were falling 
into a similar state of atrophy—whilst these, together with 
all the other prodigious changes of internal structure and 
physiological characteristics in both which are necessarily 
implied, were going on—what then, through all the ages 
of this transformation, were the physical and mental con- 
ditions of the creature which is now the male and female 
man? How was its existence maintained and its spe- 
cies (?) propagated during those immense periods of time 
whilst it was neither male nor female, but partly both ? 
Is it not evident to all men that, before we can be even 
plausibly required to accept this hypothesis as a truth of 
science, we have a logical right to demand of its advocates 
that they shall represent intelligibly all the steps, stages, 
processes, details, if not those which were actually fol- 


THE CREATION OF MAN 85 


lowed, at least those by which these stupendous trans- 
formations might possibly or conceivably have taken 
place? Yet none of them, though they have been often 
challenged, and though the necessity of it is palpable to 
all men, have ever dared or attempted to provide us with 
any such scheme, and this, fur the best of all reasons, 
because it cannot be done. For all these transformations 
which have been enumerated, together with innumerable 
others necessarily involved in the hypothesis, include 
particulars, procedures, details which no mind can, by any 
possibility, represent intelligibly to other minds, nor to 
itself —which are absolutely unthinkable. Now what 
other refutation of any hypothesis or theory does science 
require than that, in its particulars, it is unthinkable ? 

The late lamented Professor Henry, secretary of the 
Smithsonian Institution, whilst he filled the chair of physics 
in Princeton College, was always very full and explicit on 
the nature and uses of physical hypotheses and theories. 
He took great pains to impress upon his classes that they 
were very useful for one purpose, namely, in giving direc- 
tion to experiment and research looking to new discover- 
ies. Thus he was accustomed to say: “ Young gentlemen, 
your hypothesis is good for just so many facts or truths to 
the discovery of which it can lead you. When it will 
yield you no more discoveries, you have no further use for 
it—you may throw it away.” Now, agreeably to this 
view, it is undeniable that evolution has opened new paths 
of scientific investigation, and led to the discovery of many 
new facts and truths in the organic world. Neither have 
we any reason to think that it is yet exhausted. For 
scientists it may long continue to be a good and fruitful 
working hypothesis. But, for such reasons as those which 
have been given, it has no claim whateyer to be regarded 
as an established truth of science, with which other known 
truths, especially such as are revealed to our faith in the 
word of God, must be harmonized. It does not give us 


86 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


the shadow ofa reason for doubt with respect to the truth 
of the Mosaic account of the creation of man taken in the 
most obvious and natural sense of the record. And it is 
safe to predict that the time is not far distant when this 
now fashionable hypothesis, as an explanation of the origin 
of species, and of the Divine mystery of life, will be cast 
by scientists themselves “to the moles and ihe bats,” with 
the Ptolemaic system of astronomy, the Vortices ‘of Des- 
cartes, the notion that nature abhors a vacuum, and other 
Baconian “ idols of the tribe and the theatre.” 


IV 
THE DUPLEX NATURE OF MAN IN THE IMAGE OF GOD 


The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and 
breathed into his nostrilsthe breath of life, and man became a 
living soul... God created man in hisown image; in the image 
of God created He him. 


Iv has always been perceived that these words could not 
be limited to the first man, but must apply also to mankind 
—that what is here treated of is the creation of man as 
such. For to the question of the catechisms, “ Who created 
you?” every Christian child is taught to answer, “God.” 
God creates all men by his almighty power as truly as 
He created Adam. It is true, the method according to 
which the thing is done is not the same, being modified by 
the new conditions introduced in the relations which the 
child bears to its human parents, but the efficient causality, 
the creative energy, is the same in both cases. For, as we 
have seen, the forces of nature are in no sense the proper- 
ties of matter, but must be conceived of as the acts or 
energy of the Divine will; and the laws of nature are not 
powers, but simply the uniform methods according to which 
God chooses to act in the natural world. If it were not 
for this uniformity of method in the procreation of  chil- 
dren, it would b> as perfect a miracle as was the creation of 
the first man. It seems to have been with some insight 
into this great truth, which lies at the foundation of all 
true religion, that the mother of mankind exclaimed at the 
birth of her first-born, “I have gotten a man from the 
Lord.” The Psalmist also refers to it inthe words of 

87 


88 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


glowing praise, as follows: “I will praise thee, for I am 
fearfully and wonderfully made...Thou hast covered 
me in my mother’s womb... My substance was not hid 
from thee when I was made in secret, and curiously 
wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did 
see my substance yet being unperfect, and in thy book all 
my members were written, which in continuance were 
fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.” 

The particulars of this statemeut, that ‘God formed 
man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nos- 
trils the breath of life, so that he became a living soul,’ 
are significant of what is no less true of mankind. For 
the material out of which the human body is now formed 
is the nourishment supplied to the mother, which, in one 
form or another, is always produced from the earth; and 
still that by which man becomes a living soul is the breath 
of God, as truly as it was in the caseof Adam. The state- 
ment, therefore, may be understood as representing the 
truth, that man as such is composed of two distinct 
natures, the one a material and the other a spiritual sub- 
stance, in the unity of one personality. For, of course, it 
is the material part of him which is formed out of. the 
dust of the ground, and it may fairly be inferred that the 
breath of God by which he becomes a living soul is in- 
tended to represent his immaterial, spiritual and moral 
nature, since no such expression is employed in respect to 
any of the inferior creatures. This inference, however, 
does not in the least depend upon the meaning of the 
word “soul,” which in the Scriptures is often applied to 
mere animals, but is drawn solely from the fact, that the 
soul of man exclusively is here represented as the breath 
of God. The question, whether it is derived immediately 
from God (creationism) or mediately through the souls of 
the parents (traducianism) is one of no moral significance 
in this connection, since, in either case, God is its true 
author and source. And this distinction between that 


DUPLEX NATURE OF MAN IN THE IMAGE OF GOD 89 


in man which is “of the earth, earthy,” and that which is 
spiritual and moral, is another great truth of this record, 
which also lies at the foundation of our holy religion. For 
each of these two natures in man has its own distinct and 
peculiar faculties and endowments, which can be distin- 
guished from those of the other, inasmuch as one class are 
common to all animals, whilst the other are peculiar to, 
and manifest themselves in man alone. Thus, at the head, 
so to speak, of the material nature in man and all other 
animals, there is a certain faculty of sense, or of knowledge 
by means of the senses, or of sensual wisdom, which gives 
all its practical judgments for the guidance of the creature’s 
life from an earthy point of view, for the gratification of 
the appetites, passions, desires, affections which have 
their seat in the body, without any sort of reference to the 
spiritual and moral world—to the distinction between right 
and wrong, to immortality, or to God—about which, in 
fact, it knows and can know nothing. And it seems to 
be this faculty of earthly and sensual wisdom in man 
which, when he falls wholly under it, and his life is alto- 
gether governed by it, is characterized in the Scriptures as 
“the carnal mind,” “the mind of the flesh,” “the wisdom 
of man,” “the wisdom of this world,” and by other similar 
descriptive terms. In like manner, there stands at the 
head of the endowments of the spiritual nature in man a 
certain spiritual faculty, whether simple or complex, by 
which he is rendered capable of the distinction between 
right and wrong, of moral obligation, and of the knowl- 
edge of the supersensual and spiritual world, especially, of 
God and the immortality of the soul. Now the most 
prominent and striking mode of activity in this faculty is 
the conscience, which has been often and well called “the 
voice of God in man,” because it seems to be best compre- 
hended as the organ through which God reveals his dis- 
tinctions between good and evil in the forms of right and 

wrong, commanding the one, and forbidding the other, on — 


90 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


his own absolute authority. But, perhaps, the true nature 
and functions of the conscience may be best illustrated in 
a figure, as follows: Man is created to be a temple and 
palace for the indwelling of his Maker—“ Whose house 
are we”—in which are many beautiful and wonderful 
compartments. Here, first, is the outer court of the senses, 
which surrounds the whole building. Crossing this, and 
penetrating further into the sacred enclosure, we have, on 
the right hand, the chamber of the intellect, reason, or 
powers of thought, and on the left, that of the sensibilities 
and affections. More interior still, communicating with — 
both these, and through them with the court of the senses, 
we come to the chamber of the will—the will, which is 
the steward of the house. Beyond this, in the very centre 
of the building, we enter a secret chamber, which commu- 
nicates with all the others, and which is lighted only from 
above. This is the place of the conscience. Here we 
behold what seems to be both an altar or shrine and a 
throne, upon which the light streams down from above, 
and is reflected with soft radiance through the room. He 
who sits upon this throne and is worshipped on this altar, 
being invisible, is “the architect and builder” [rezyirys 
xat Onwovpyos] of the house; and from this central point 
He sends forth through all its compartments His oracles 
of distinction between good and evil in the forms of com- 
mand and prohibition, for the ordering and government of 
his household. 

Such, in a figure, as best we can conceive of it, is the 
conscience in man, the supreme faculty of his spiritual na- 
ture. Hence the absolute authority with which it delivers 
its sacred oracles, which demands implicit, unhesitating 
submission and obedience, and which can be rationally 
comprehended no otherwise than as being the authority of 
God. Hence, also, the feeling of moral obligation with 
which it binds all the other faculties of the human soul, 
and of which we are so deeply conscious. The conception 


DUPLEX NATURE OF MAN IN THE IMAGE OF GOD 91 


of this great mystery of our being which we here endeavor 
to unfold is this: When that which is good in the sight of 
God is presented to our minds, and we hear the conscience 
aright, it says to us, This is right ; this thou shalt do; do- 
ing this it shall be well with thee—thou shalt live: and, 
when that which is evil in the sight of God is presented, 
the voice of the conscience, rightly heard, says, This is 
wrong; this thou shalt not do; doing this it shall not be 
well with thee—thou shalt surely die. Accordingly we 
find by experience that, when we are submissive and obedi- 
ent to this Divinely authoritative direction, it is well with 
us—we are at peace with God and with ourselves: but 
when we are disobedient and rebellious, it is not well with 
us—there is no peace between God and our souls—we are 
troubled with self-condemnation, shame, remorse and fear. 
The voice within us gives no further account of itself. 
Otherwise than by the absolute authority with which it 
speaks, it does not tell us “ whence it cometh, nor whither 
it goeth.” Least of all does it afford us any explanation of 
the reasons upon which its mysterious distinctions between 
what it commands and what it forbids are grounded. For 
these reasons, as will more fully appear in the sequel, are 
such as it is impossible for us with our finite faculties to 
appreciate—such as none but God himself can comprehend 
by His all-perfect knowledge of the infinite and eternal dis- 
tinction between good and evil, and of the infinite series of 
consequences which flow from all human actions. 

Here, however, it is by no means claimed that the con- 
science, in our present fallen state, is an infallible guide. 
For its heavenly light has been darkened, and its authority, 
in some sort, dethroned by the entrance of sin into the 
temple of God. Its sacred oracles, though not wholly 
drowned by the turmoil and clamor of rebellious appetites 
and passions, are not now heard with their original fulness 
and certainty and authority. We are constantly liable to 
mistake our own wisdom and desires for the voice of God 


99 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


in our souls. But in the first man, whilst yet the image 
of God in his soul remained in all its integrity, and the 
Divine law written in his heart had not yet been defaced 
nor obscured by sin, the conscience, surely, must be con- 
ceived of as giving forth its oracles with a certainty and 
power which he could not mistake, and as constituting for 
him an infallible guide and law of distinction between good 
and evil. In confirmation of this view, we may refer to 
the analogy of instinct in animals, by which they distin- 
guish between what is good and what is evil for themselves, 
prior to experience, and without foresight of the consequen- 
ces of their actions. Conscience in the first man before 
he had sinned was the infallible and all-controlling instinet 
of his spiritual nature, after a manner analogous to that in 
which animal instinct is yet a sort of conscience in irrational 
creatures. 

With respect now to the image or likeness of God in 
which it is here declared that man was originally created, 
this declaration has a peculiar fitness and propriety, stand- 
ing, as it does, at the opening of Divine revelation, inas- 
much as it sets forth the one fact or condition which makes 
it possible for God to reveal himself to our minds. For 
it is an inconceivable thing that He should make himself 
known to any creature which has in it nothing of His like- 
ness. It follows'from this, a further reason of which we 
shall see directly, that these words must be intended to in- 
clude all mankind, and to declare that they also are created 
in the image of God ; for this likeness, althouzh it has been 
defaced and obscured, has not been wholly obliterated by 
sin. This was clearly perceived by our English translators 
of the Bible, as appears from their rendering of the Hebrew 
word, man, in its universal form, notwithstanding, in the 
original, it has in this place the definite article. Prob- 
ably they regarded themselves as warranted in this by the 
fact, that a certain image of God in all men is frequently 
recognized in the subsequent Scriptures. Thus, in the law 


DUPLEX NATURE OF MAN IN THE IMAGE OF GOD 93 


given to Noah, it is enjoined that the murderer shall be 
put to death for this reason, that “in the image of God 
made He man”; where the word still has the article. But 
evidently this reason has no force, except upon the assump- 
tion that the murdered person, whoever he might be, was 
made in the image of God. In the New Testament, also, 
the unbridled tongue is condemned as that “wherewith 
curse we men which are made in the similitude of God.” 
Now the reason why some likeness of God in men is an 
indispensable condition of His revelation of himself to 
them, is, that beings which are altogether dissimilar cannot 
commune with, nor understand each other. This is as- 
sumed in the reasoning of the apostle John where he says 
of the Lord : “ We know that we shall be like Him, for we 
shall see Him as He is.” In fact, it is impossible for us to 
form a conception of anything in God the similitude of 
which we do not find in ourselves. Whatever there may 
be in His infinite fulness to which there is nothing in us 
that in anywise corresponds, must forever remain unknown 
to us. Hence the names by which we express what we 
know of His attributes and perfections are universally the 
names of faculties or qualities in ourselves. Thus, the 
words, knowledge, wisdom, power, justice, holiness, love, 
and the like, express ideas which we derive wholly from 
our own experience. ' For, self-evidently, if we were desti- 
tute of intelligence, we could not ascribe intelligence to 
God. This is equally true, though not in all cases so ob- 
vious, of all other attributes which we ascribe to Him, yet, 
with this qualification, that we conceive of them in Him as 
being original, independent, infinite and perfect, whilst that 
which corresponds to them in us is derived, dependent, 
finite, and every way imperfect. Hence the image or like- 
ness of God in man consists in intelligence or reason, In 
affections or sensibility, and in volition or will, which, in 
vital union, constitute personality. Here, then, we have 
God revealed to us as a personal being, which is another of 


94 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


the fundamental truths of religion. In like manner, the 
sense of justice in us is the image of justice in God, and so 
of love, pity, truth, holiness, and all His attributes. 

Moreover, whatever there is in us is derived from, and is 
constantly dependent upon, that in God of which it is the 
image or reflection, sin only, with all its consequences, 
being excepted. For every thing which has been intro- 
duced into our nature by sin is derived from a different 
source, is in the image of Satan, and renders us unlike 
God. With respect now to this dependence of man upon 
God, it may be compared to that of a person’s likeness 
in a mirror upon the person himself. Whilst he stands 
before the glass, his form and features are reflected in it. 
The image moves as he moves, and perishes the mo- 
ment he withdraws himself. Thus it is, in some sort, 
that the being and attributes of God, mysteriously re- 
flected, after the manner of the infinite in the finite, 
become the being and attributes of man. Thus our 
intelligence, sensibility and will are the reflection of the 
intelligence, sensibility and will of God. Thus our spirit- 
ual and moral nature is the reflection of the spiritual and 
moral nature of God. Justice, holiness, goodness and 
truth have no existence in us otherwise than as the finite 
and dependent reflection of that in God which is their 
original and eternal substance. We are sustained in exist- 
ence every moment by His power as truly and immediately 
as the image in a mirror by the presence of him whose 
reflection it is: and if He should cease to reflect himself 
in space and time, the whole race of mankind, and the 
universe itself, would instantly perish, as the figures vanish 
from the mirrors when the company retires from the 
thronged hall. In this sense it is written : “ For in Him 
we live and move and have our being... Who upholdeth 
all things by the word of His power... And by Him 
all things consist.” 

In this comparison, moreover, we discern the transcend- 


DUPLEX NATURE OF MAM IN THE IMAGE OF GOD 95 


ent nature of the being and attributes of God, according 
as the living person transcends his reflection in a mirror. 
For God is infinitely above all the ideas or conceptions of 
Him which we can form. When we have ascribed to Him 
all conceivable perfections, He is above that which we 
have imagined Him to be. The largest and noblest mean- 
ings which we can attach to such words as being, power, 
wisdom, truth, holiness, justice, goodness and love, are 
nothing more than index fingers pointing upwards to that 
in Him which we call by these names. That to which 
they point remains ever transcendent—infinitely beyond 
our highest conceptions: “Canst thou by searching find 
out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfec- 
tion? Itis high as heaven; what canst thou do? It is 
deeper than hell [Sheol] what canst thou know?” This is 
one reason why we are forbidden to represent God under 
any material image, for such representations can do noth- 
ing but degrade Him in our eyes. This, also, is one of 
the truths contained in His great and terrible name, Jeho- 
yah, which properly signifies, not, Iam that I am, but I 
am He who is, as if in comparison with Him, being itself 
could hardly be predicated of any creature. And this was 
symbolized, though under a pantheistic conception, by the 
veiled statue of the Egyptian Isis, with its mystical in- 
scription: “I am all that has been, is, and shall be ; and 
no mortal has ever lifted my veil.” ‘For God only hath 
immortality, dwelling in light which no man can approach 
unto, whom no man hath seen, nor can see, to whom be 
honor and power everlasting, amen.’ 

It would seem, then, that the best conception we can 
form of the image of God in the first man before he had 
sinned, is that of a reflection from a perfect mirror. It 
was like that of the starry heavens reflected from the 
surface of a pure and serene lake, when unruffled by a 
breath of air, and undefiled by the swollen mountain 
streams. And in order that the perfection of this image 


96 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


should be preserved, it was necessary that man should con- 
tinue to recognize himself as such a dependent reflection of 
the being and attributes of his Maker. For the moment 
he should aspire to an independent, self-originated, self- 
sustained life and agency, his likeness to God would 
necessarily be marred, defaced, distorted. This would be, 
in some sort, as if the reflection in a mirror should assume 
to itself an independent agency, and should begin to mock 
and caricature the features and motions of the person 
from whom it is reflected. In fact, it was just such a 
breach of moral law and spiritual order which God beheld 
when man began to act as from himself in violation of the 
Divine command. For sin consists at bottom in the crea- 
ture’s losing the sense and recognition of its Creator—in 
the aspiration to independence of ‘Him in whom it lives 
and moves and has its being.’ 

It should be further observed, that the image of God in 
the spiritual nature of man is again reflected in his ma- 
terial form. This is evident from the sense of incongruity 
which is awakened in us by the supposition of a brute 
nature in a human body, or of a human spirit in the form 
of any mere animal. Instantly we are conscious of a 
shocking incongruity. For, in the one case, the form 
would be a loathsome prison rather than a suitable organ- 
ism, and, in the other, it would be necessary that the 
monster should be either chained up or destroyed. Hence 
the word upright, in reference to the human form, has 
come to signify in all languages, honest or just—the up- 
right stature of man being everywhere regarded as an 
image or symbol of moral uprightness. Hence, also, to 
stumble and fall means to commit sin. In like manner, 
the freedom of the human hands and arms, as contrasted 
with the fore-legs and feet of animals, which are confined 
to the ground, reflects and represents the freedom of man’s 
will. In fine, his clear and lofty eye, adapted to looking 
upwards rather than downwards, symbolizes his capacity 


+8 tr“ 


ieee. ere: = 


DUPLEX NATURE OF MAN IN THE IMAGE OF GOD 97 


for the knowledge of spiritual and Divine things—the 
knowledge of God, immortality and heaven. Hence the 
ever-memorable words of the Roman poet. * 

The full and constant recognition of the transcendent 
nature of the being and attributes of God is our only effect- 
ual safe-guard against anthropomorphism, which is the 
attempt to attain unto God by bringing Him down to us. 
For this is an error to which all men are prone, and one 
which is hardly less common now among Christians than 
it was among the Greeks, when St. Paul preached against it 
in Athens. ‘T’oo often we think of God as altogether such 
a one as are we ourselves: “Thou thoughtest that I was 
altogether such a one as thyself.” Too often we forget 
that He is incomprehensible—in all His modes of being 
and attributes as far above the loftiest flight of our thoughts 
as the firmament is above the reach of our arms—tran- 
scending all our conceptions, as the person of a man tran- 
scends his likeness reflected in a mirror. It is in this sense 
He declares: “ My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither 
are your ways my ways, saith the Lord: foras the heavens 
are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than 
your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” The 
most perfect conceptions we can form of Him are altogether 
inadequate, being derived from the dependent and now 
distorted reflection in us, and not from the all-perfect and 
eternal substance in Him. Moreover, it is only in pres- 
ence of the Incomprehensible that our minds are hum- 
bled and subdued to faith. The Infinite alone can we 


* Pronaque cum spectent animalia cetera terram, 
Os homini sublime dedit, eeelumque tueri 
Jussit, et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus. 


Whilst, in their forms and in their nature prone, 
All other creatures look upon the ground, 
Feature and form sublime to man He gave, 
And bade him look with steady eyes to heaven. 
Ovid. Met. 1. 2. 


98 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


truly reverence and adore. As the object of our worship, 
God must be regarded as transcendently above the noblest 
conceptions that we can form of His attributes and pertec- 
tions, 


| 


Vv 


THE TEMPTATION IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN 


The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there 
He put the man whom He had formed. And out of the ground 
made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight 
and good for food—the tree of life, also, in the midst of the garden 
and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And the Lord 
God commanded the man, saying: Of every tree of the garden 
thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good 
and evil—thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest 
thereof thou shalt surely die. .. Now the serpent was more subtle 
than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made: and he 
said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, ye shall not eat of every 
-tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We 
may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of 
the tree which is in the midst of the garden God hath said, Ye 
shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the 
serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die, for God doth 
know that in the day ye eat thereof ye shall be as God, knowing 
good and evil. 


THE infidel Voltaire, in his ribald way, has somewhere 
observed that the “story of the garden of Eden only shows 
how much the God of Jews and Christians cares for his 
apples, and how little for his children.” Now the mis- 
understanding of the record which is evinced by this 
blasphemous remark is hardly more gross and inexcus- 
able than that which has generally prevailed among 
Christians themselves, For it has been commonly sup- 
posed that this forbidden tree was placed in the primal 
abode of our first parents as a trial of their faith and 
obedience, to prove them, whether they would obey, or 


not, by giving them a ready occasion for disobedience, if 
99 


100 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


they should choose to avail themselves of it. But this 
notion is never once alluded to in the Scriptures, nor are 
there any rational grounds for it. On the contrary, these 
two trees in the midst of the garden were, by their pro- 
found symbolical* significance, as we must now undertake 


* The symbolical character of the historical transactions connected with 
the garden of Eden is evinced by such considerations as the follow- 
ing: 1. The analogy of other scriptural narratives, such as that of the 
brazen serpent in the wilderness. 2. The significance of the names of per- 
sons and things, such as those of “the tree of life and the tree of the 
knowledge of good and evil,” which are similar to the tree of liberty, the 
castle of indolence, the palace of desire; for if language be not here used 
at random, the names of these two trees must be interpreted as symbols 
under which something pertaining to lifeand tothe knowledge of good 
andeyil is represented. 38. The universality of the things here treated of ; 
the creation of man from the dust of the ground, the distinction of sex, 
the temptation and sin of man, shame, the pains of childbirth, labor, 
sorrow and death. These things areco-extensive with the human race; but 
if we have nothing here but a literal narrative concerning Adam and Eve, 
it gives us no information of the origin of these things in mankind, 
Hence, in the words of President Edwards: ‘ There is scarcely a word, 
that we have any account of, which God ever said to Adam or Eve but 
which does manifestly include their posterity in the meaning and design 
of it.” And, with certain obvious qualifications, this is equally true of 
what is said about them, of their own words and actions, and of the cir- 
cumstances in which they were placed. 4. A symbolical meaning is fre- 
quently drawn from these events by the Lord and His apostles, as in His 
prohibition of divorce at the pleasure of the husband: “ Have ye not read 
that He which made them at the beginning made them male and female, 
and said: For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall 
cleave to his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh ? Wherefore, they are 
no more twain, but one flesh. What, therefore, God hath joined together 
let not man put asunder.’”’ Now, however valid this may have been as a 
reason why Adam should not divorce Eve, it cannot be made to apply to 
other men except by regarding it asa sacred symbol under which God has 
declared His will with respect to marriage in general. Also, St. Paul 
argues from the fact, that ‘Adam was first formed, then Eve,” and that 
she “ was first in the transgression,” that woman as such is not to usurp 
authority over her husband. But evidently this reasoning has no force 
except upon the assumption that the order in which the first man and 
woman were created and fell into sin was asymbolical transaction. For 
otherwise this sequence, though it might be a good reason why Eve should 
not usurp authority over Adam, would be no reason at all why other 
women should be put under the same law. It would seem that this evi- 
dence of the symbolical character of these transactions leaves nothing to 
desire, although we shall find it abundantly confirmed by the analysis 
given in the text of the symbols themselves. 


THE TEMPTATION IN PARADISE 101 


to show, Divinely adapted to guard and conserve man’s 
innocence and happiness ; in other words, they were placed 
in the garden to represent and to impress upon his mind and 
heart, those very truths by which alone was it possible 
that he should be kept from sinning, and should continue 
in that holy and blessed state wherein he was created. 

For this “garden of the Lord,” or paradise of delight, 
with its beautiful trees and spontaneous flowers and fruits, 
was not only a place of abode perfectly adapted to the 
simplicity and innocence of the first human pair, but also 
it constituted a most vivid image or symbol of their inward 
and spiritual life. And in order that it might serve this 
purpose with respect to the deepest mysteries of their 
moral and spiritual nature, these two trees were placed in 
the midst of it, both, as it would seem, equally fair to the 
eye and fruitful; the fruit of one apparently as good for 
food as that of the other; yet carefully distinguished by 
different significant names, and by the fact, that of the one 
they were allowed to eat, whilst the other was solemnly 
prohibited under the penalty of death. What, then, we 
must inquire here, are the great truths which these two 
symbolical trees were intended and adapted to signify to 
the minds of our first parents and to all their posterity ? 
Especially, what was and is eternally forbidden to man in 
the prohibition which God laid upon the tree of the knowl- 
edge of good and evil? This is the fundamental question, 
upon the solution of which all rational understanding. of 
this mysterious transaction depends. 

In order to solve it, we must here take into consideration 
the necessity under which man, even in his estate of inno- 
cence, must have been placed, for an infallible guidance, 
in order that it should continue to be well with him. For, 
whatever conceivably might have been his circumstances, 
even though there had. been no forbidden tree in his 
paradise, yet his life must necessarily have been passed 
between two worlds of good and evil, inasmuch as this is a 


102 WISDOM OF IIOLY SCRIPTURE 


condition which no creature can, by any possibility, escape, 
because it results from the obvious fact, that all good things 
have their opposites, which must be evil. Thus, if truth, 
justice, temperance, to love God and our neighbor, food 
and exercise, be good for us, then falsehood, injustice, in- 
temperance, to hate God ane our Hoehne idleness and 
poison, must be evil for us; it is not ee that it 
should be otherwise. And these two worlds of good and 
evil between which every one’s life must be passed are 
practically infinite. For every human action has its effects 
and consequences, both upon its subject and object, to 
which no limits can be assigned, which naturally run on 
forever. Especially does every thought, affection, volition 
and action exert a reflex influence upon its subject, and 
render him, to some extent at least, a different being from 
what he was before. Every indulgence in narcotics or 
intoxicants tends, as is well known, to strengthen the 
appetite which craves them, enfeebles the power of resist- 
ance to the temptation, and renders their victim more prone 
to such indulgences. ‘The confirmed drunkard and opium- 
eater, how changed, how fallen from what they once were! 
On the other hand, by every act of relieving the necessi- 
ties of the poor and suffering, or of Christian sympathy 
and liberality in any other form, our disposition to sym- 
pathy, charity and liberality is developed and strengthened. 
Thus, by the exercise of pure and holy affections we 
become more pure and holy; by impurity we become 
more impure. Moreover, the changes which are thus 
wrought in our characters necessarily affect all our subse- 
quent agency, rendering it, with all its results, different 
from what it would otherwise have been. Hence the 
effects and consequences of our actions naturally run on 
accumulating forever—are practically infinite. All this, 
indeed, is so insensible that commonly we think little 
about it, yet is it inevitable as are the results of any physi- 
cal law. It is like the incessant dropping of water, which 


THE TEMPTATION IN PARADISE 103 


seems to produce no effect, but by which, in time, the 
whole rock is worn away. In fine, because the effects and 
consequences of our moral agency are thus infinite, they 
cannot be comprehended, nor predicted, nor foreseen by 
our finite faculties, so that, in view of them, it is impossible 
for us to choose aright between good and evil. As a mat- 
ter of universal experience, they turn out to be different 
from what we anticipate. That which seems to us evil to 
do, or to suffer, often produces the most blessed fruits, and 
that which seems most desirable is often fraught with 
measureless evil: to all which it must be added, that both 
the good and evil fruits of our actions become known to 
us only through experience, after the actions themselves 
have been performed, and can never be recalled. 

Now, all this must have been just as true of the first 
man before he had sinned as it is for us, because it is a 
necessary condition of finite intelligence. It was as impos- 
sible for him to foresee the infinite consequences of good or 
evil which would flow from his actions as it is for us. 
Hence it always was, and is, and forever must be, impos- 
sible for man to distinguish and choose aright between 
good and evil by his own prudential wisdom. Left to his 
own guidance, the first man would not only have been 
liable to error,* but he would have been under a fatal 
necessity of mistaking, at some time, through mere defect 
of knowledge, evil for good, and thus, from the infinite 
consequences of such a mistake, of bringing himself under 
the endless dominion of evil. Hence he could not be, and 
was not, left to the guidance of his own prudential wis- 
dom ; but, as we must conceive of him from the moment 
of his creation, he was placed under the infallible direction 
of the wisdom of God in his conscience, to govern his 
every act of discernment and choice, as the lower animals 


* Both the Hebrew word NNT and the Greek dwapria, sin, primarily 
signify an error, mistake, blunder. 


104 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


are directed by their unerring instincts. For howsoever 
this Divine guidance may have been revealed to him, 
whether by inward monitions, or oral commandments, as 
in the case of the forbidden tree, it must have reached 
and taken effect in his conscience, whose function it was, 
as we have seen, to hear the voice of God in his soul. 

Thus we see that there were certain great truths which 
needed to be indelibly impressed upon the minds and 
hearts of our first parents, in order to the possibility of 
their continuing in their original estate of innocence and 
bliss, namely: (1) That their lives, even in paradise, must 
be passed, and their every act must be a choice, between 
two worlds of good and evil: (2) That, for the purpose of 
right discrimination between these two worlds, they could 
not rely upon their own prudential wisdom, but must hold 
themselves, in every choice and act, implicitly submissive 
and obedient to the authority of the wisdom of God in 
their consciences, which marked that which was good for 
them to choose and do as right, and commanded it, and 
which stigmatized the evil as wrong, and prohibited it: 
(3) That, if they should cease to heed the sacred oracle of 
God in their bosoms, and undertake to guide themselves 
by their own shortsighted and fallible insights and reason- 
ings—the moment they should set up their own prudential 
wisdom as their: guide and law of distinction and choice 
between good and evil, and should choose what might seem 
good in their own eyes, instead of what was good in the. 
eyes of God, as enjoined upon them in their consciences— 
they could not fail to choose amiss, evil for good, nor to 
plunge themselves into the world of evil. 

Now, by what conceivable means could these truths be 
most vividly represented to their minds, and most power- 
fully impressed upon their hearts? This was the problem 
which God seems to haye placed before His mind from the 
moment of their creation, and which He solved, according 
to His all-perfect wisdom, in the arrangement of the two 


THE TEMPTATION IN PARADISE 105 


symbolical trees in the midst of their paradisiacal abode, 
the significance of which remains to be considered. 

With respect to the forbidden tree, its symbolical mean- 
ing would have been more obvious if its name had been 
correctly rendered in the English version of the Scriptures, 
and in accordance with similar expressions wherever they 
occur. For of the child that should be born of a virgin, 
it is said: ‘“ Butter and honey shall he eat [he shall be 
nourished with the choicest spiritual food] that he may 
know to refuse the evil and choose the good: for before 
the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, 
the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her 
kings.” Now this passage evidently refers to early child- 
hood, whilst the moral nature is yet undeveloped, and the 
voice of the conscience distinguishing between right and 
wrong is not yet heard. Again, with respect to the en- 
trance of the children of Israel into the promised land, it 
is said: ‘ Your children, which in that day had no knowl- 
edge between good and evil—they shall go in thither, and 
unto them will I give it, and they shall possess it.’ Now 
the Hebrew words in the name of this tree which are 
translated “the knowledge of good and evil” are precisely 
the same with those which are here properly rendered 
“knowledge between good and evil.” Beyond a question, 
their meaning is the same in both places ; whence we see 
that the real name of this tree was, “ the tree of the knowl- 
edge between good and evil.” This was clearly perceived by _ 
Augustine, who expressly says that it “ was named the tree 
of the science of distinguishing between [dignoscendi] good 
and evil.” 

These two symbolical trees, then, in that they stood in 
the midst of man’s life-sphere, and in that one of them was 
allowed and the other was prohibited to his eating, repre- 
sented the truth, that his life must necessarily be passed, 
and his every act must be a discrimination and choice, be- 
tween things allowed and things forbidden, that is, between 

5* 


106 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


the two worlds of good and evil. In that they were 
equally fair to the eye, and, to all appearance, equally good 
for food, but more especially, in that it was the tree of the 
knowledge between good and evil which was prohibited 
upon the penalty of death, they represented the truth, that 
he could not distinguish between good and evil by his own 
prudential wisdom, that he was prohibited from all at- 
tempts to do so, and that, the moment he should attempt it, 
he would inevitably subject himself to the sum of all evils. 
The tree of life, in that it was so named, and he was al- 
lowed to eat of its fruit, represented the truth, that his life 
of innocence, holiness and happiness would be perennially 
nourished and conserved by his constantly choosing and 
doing that which was marked for him as right and good 
and commanded by the wisdom and authority of God in 
his conscience. In fine, that no reasons were given him 
why one tree was allowed and the other forbidden, repre- 
sented the truth, that God’s distinctions between good and 
evil were grounded upon reasons which it was impossible for 
him tocomprehend or appreciate, which could not be revealed 
to his finite understanding, which he must not attempt 
to bring under the test of his own reasoning, insight, or 
foresight, but must hold himself, in every choice and act, 
implicitly submissive and obedient to the commards and 
prohibitions of his Divine guide. 

Thus interpreted, according to the best ascertained laws 
of symbolic representation, these two trees must be recog- 
nized as the two holy sacraments of the primeval church. 
For in their general character and object, they correspond, 
in the closest manner, to the two sacraments of Baptism 
and the Lord’s Supper, which our Saviour, with his perfect 
knowledge of our spiritual wants, ordained in the Christian 
church to represent and seal upon our hearts the great 
and fundamental truths of his gospel by which we live. 
Not at all, therefore, were they placed in the midst of 
man’s primitive abode to prove him, whether he would 


THE TEMPTATION IN PARADISE 107 


obey, or not, nor as a ready occasion or temptation to dis- 
obedience—God forbid!—but to represent in sensible 
form, and to impress upon his mind and heart, the truths 
of his spiritual life, as means indispensable and Divinely 
adapted to the safe-guard of his innocence and happiness. 
And whether he discerned the full significance of this 
grand symbolic representation, or not, in the nature of 
things, he must have been deeply sensible to its broad and 
general impression, just as Christians are powerfully im- 
pressed by the sacraments of the church, even when they 
comprehend but a little of their unfathomable meaning. 
Thus we see that the love of God for his redeemed people 
beams forth from thesacrament of the holy supper with hardly 
greater effulgence or splendor than does his fatherly tender- 
ness for his first human children from these two symbolic 
trees in the midst of their earthly paradise. For without 
them, the sin and fall of man would not only have been 
possible, as it must have been in any case, but it would 
have been inevitable, just as where the Christian sacraments 
are rejected, there the precious truths which they represent 
and are intended to seal upon men’s hearts soon become in- 
operative, and finally perish out of their minds. 

We are now prepared to understand in a rational way 
the nature of the temptation under which man sinned and 
fell. And reserving all discussion of the tempter for a 
future study, we may notice here that he addressed. himself 
to the woman apart from her husband, for what reason we 
are not informed, but probably with a subtle forecast 
which was fully justified by the result, that she would be- 
come his pliant and efficient instrument for the seduction 
of her husband. However this may be, it is of much 
vreater importance far us to abserye, that his representa- 
tions concerning the Diyine prohibition took effect in her 
mind, and awakened corresponding thoughts and senti- 
ments. This is evident from the fact, that she believed 
him, and that his temptation was successful. By his sub- 


108 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


tle power, he seems to have spoken his words into her 
very soul, so that these, as they appear on the record, no 
less than her own words, must be taken as expressing what 
passed in her experience. This has been well expressed as 
follows: “The old serpent deceived our race, and poisoned 
its root, by that well-chosen temptation addressed to our 
first parents: Ye shall be as gods knowing good and 
evil. He seems to have spoken the word into their very 
souls, so that it became a part of their being.” 

He begins, then, with questioning the Divine prohibi- 
tion: “ Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree 
of the garden?” This question, interpreted by the He- 
brew idiom which it contains, properly signifies: Is there, 
indeed, any tree in the garden of which God has forbidden 
you to eat? His words took effect in the woman’s mind, 
and became in her a sceptical questioning of the prohibi- 
tion, which was the commencement of her bosom sin. For 
there was no occasion for it, nor does it matter to what it 
applied. It may be that the prohibition had made too 
feeble an impression upon her memory, so that a doubt 
began to arise, whether, indeed, it had ever been given ; 
for some such forgetfulness seems to be implied in the 
words of her subsequent attempt to excuse her transgres- 
sion: “The serpent beguiled me [literally, caused me to 
forget], and I did eat.” But this was sin; for in that 
the command had been given, it was the thing which ought 
to have been remembered, whatever else might be forgot- 
ten. Ora doubt may have arisen in her mind, whether 
she had understood it aright ; dnd this was sin, for when 
God speaks, He means to be understood, and whoever does 
not understand Him must either accuse Him of not speak- 
ing with sufficient plainness, or convict himself of not 
hearing as he ought to hear. Or this questioning may 
have applied, as somewhere in the temptation, no doubt, it 
did, to the reasons for which such a mysterious prohibition 


had been laid upon them : Why has God forbidden us to 


THE TEMPTATION IN PARADISE 109 


eat of this beautiful tree? If there is any harm in it, why 
has He not told us what it is? for what reason has He 
placed us under this authoritative law which renders no 
account to us of the grounds of its mysterious distinctions ? 
Now all such questioning, in so far as it implies reluctance 
or hesitation to obey, is sin. Jor thereby man cites the 
wisdom of God to the bar of his own wisdom, and requires 
it to give account of itself before that inferior tribunal, 
which, as we have seen, it cannot do, because God’s dis- 
tinctions are grounded upon His incommunicable knowl- 
edge of the essential and eternal difference and opposition 
between good and evil, and of the infinite series of 
effects and consequences which flow from moral actions, 
which, in the nature of the case, it is impossible for the 
finite mind to comprehend. Hence the Word or Wisdom 
of God, howsoever He reveals Himself, must “speak with 
authority, and not as the scribes.” . 

The reply of the woman: ‘ We may eat of the fruit of 
the trees of the garden, but of the tree which is in the 
midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, 
neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die” —these words are not 
to be understood as adding anything to the Divine pro- 
hibition, but simply as re-affirming it in its certainty and 
rigor. ‘They represent a reaction in the mind of the woman 
against her sceptical doubts, and a re-affirmation of the 
command in her conscience. For such re-affirmation of 
its authoritative deliverances is all that can be obtained 
from the conscience by whatever questions it may be 
pressed. 

From questioning the tempter proceeds to impudent 
denial of the truth and sincesity of God, and to a slander- 
ous charge of malice against Him, which he sustains by a 
plausible, but wholly false interpretation of the symbolical 
name of the forbidden tree. “Ye shall not surely die [ye 
shall not die at all], for God doth know that in the day 
ye eat thereof your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be 


110 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


as God knowing good and evil.” The sense of these 
words also entered into the woman, and must be taken 
as representing the progress of her own thoughts and 
desires. But here, again, a fundamental question arises, 
namely, what precisely was the object of desire, or the 
benefit, which the tempter set before her mind in these 
words, as an inducement to violate the Divine prohibition? 
This question requires to be the niore carefully elucidated 
because it is obscured by certain difficulties of interpre- 
tation. 

For it has commonly been supposed that this object of 
desire was the experimental knowledge of evil, in distine- 
tion from good. But this cannot possibly be the true 
meaning of the tempter’s words, which require to be ren- 
dered, Ye shall be as [or like] God, knowing good and 
evil. or everywhere else in this record, the same He- 
brew word O°72N, though plural in form, is translated in 
the singular, because it is always the subject of a singular 
verb. Probably it was not so rendered here in English 
with reference to the subsequent words of God: “ Behold, 
the man is beeome as one of us to know good and evil.* 
But this expression, as all interpreters agree, does not imply 
a plurality of Gods, and, consequently, cannot justify the 
translation of the word in the plural here. Now it is 
utterly inconceivable that either the woman or her husband 
should become, in any sense, more like God by the experi- 
mental knowledge of evil, for God certainly has no such 
experience. In no intelligible sense, was man rendered 
more like God by sinning against Him than he was before; 
but, in every way, he was made more unlike Him; for sin 
it was, and nothing else, which mutilated and shattered 
that image or likeness of his Maker in which he had been 
created. No less. inconceivable is it that the experimental 
knowledge of evil, which is precisely the same thing as to 


* For the evidence that these words are ironical, see pp. 208-214 


———— - 


" , 


THE TEMPTATION IN PARADISE 111 


suffer it, should be an object of desire to any rational being. 
Thus interpreted, the tempter’s words, instead of being a 
solicitation by the promise of a benefit, become a palpable 
warning or threat, that, if she should eat of the tree, she 
should surely suffer for it. In fine, these words represent 
the knowledge of good, no less than of evil, as the object 
to be obtained by eating of the fruit of this tree, and to 
limit this knowledge to evil alone is not to interpret, but 
to pervert them. In fact, this notion is one of those miser- 
able errors which, by their extensive prevalence, have 
covered this whole subject with almost impenetrable dark- 
ness. 

But, now, if we bear in mind what has been already 
determined, with respect to the impossibility of the finite 
mind’s distinguishing between good and evil by its own 
wisdom, we shall have no difficulty in understanding what 
that object of desire and aspiration on the part of the 
woman was for the attainment of which the tempter 
represents to her that she might venture to transgress even 
the command of her Maker. “ Ye shall be as God know- 
ing [discerning between] good and evil,” he says; the 
meaning of which plainly is, If you will eat of the fruit 
of this mysterious tree, instead of incurring death, or any 
evil, as God has falsely declared that you shall, the eyes of 
your understandings shall be opened, as he knew that they 
would, and as the name of the tree itself signifies, so that 
you will be enabled infallibly to discern and choose be- 
tween good and evil for yourselves by your own wis- 
dom. Thus you will obtainemancipation from your pres- 
ent blind and slavish dependence upon Him for guid- 
ance and direction, in which He seeks to hold you by 
forbidding you to eat of this goodly tree: you will become 
independent of Him in thought and life, yea, equal to Him 
in that you will be a law unto yourselves, and will hold 
your welfare and happiness absolutely and forever in your 
own. hands, 


112 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


The woman believed these slanderous and malignant 
lies. They entered into her soul, and reproduced them- 
selves in her experience. For when she saw that the 
wisdom of God would not condescend to justify itself at 
the bar of her wisdom, which, as we have seen, it could 
not do, she lost faith in it, and began to ascribe falsehood, 
intentional deceit and evil motives to her Maker. She 
said in her heart: We shall not die at all by eating of the 
fruit of this tree. God has deceived us with malignant 
intent to hold us in slavish dependence upon himself, and 
in subjection to His arbitrary will. For here in the fruit 
of this beautiful tree, as its name indicates, and as God 
knew when He prohibited it, there is contained such a 
potent virtue that, as soon as we shall eat of it, our eyes 
shall be opened, and we shall become equal to God in our 
ability to discern and choose between good and evil for 
ourselves by our own wisdom. Thus we shall obtain com- 
plete emancipation from our blind dependence upon the 
authority of God’s laws, which render no reasons for their 
commands or prohibitions, but only thunder death to the 
transgressor. Here, then, the light of faith in God, by 
which hitherto she had seen all things through His eyes, 
so to speak, went out, and dark, horrible, Godless un- 
belief entered, by which she was thrown back upon her 
own short-sighted and erring wisdom for the guidance 
of her life. 


Vi 
THE ORIGINAL SIN 


And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and 
that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make 
her wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and she gaye 
also to her husband with her, and he did eat. 


Tire bosom sin which had already been generated in the 
heart of our first mother under the subtle temptation of 
the adversary could not fail to go forth and consummate 
itself in the corresponding outward act of transgression. 
For her sense of sight was now captivated by the beauty 
of the tree loaded with its ripe fruit. Her sense of taste 
also was excited by the anticipated pleasure of eating what 
she thought must be more delicious food than any she had 
ever tasted. And for these gratifications of her earthly 
and sensual nature, she was now ready to cast off finally 
and forever the wisdom and commands of God as the 
guide and law of her life. But, above all, the tree was 
one to be desired to make her wise, in what sense we have 
already seen. For by the potent virtue of its fruit, she 
would obtain, as she had been deluded to believe, an in- 
telligent and unerring insight into the nature of good and 
evil, so that she could choose between them for herself by 
her own wisdom. And, oh, how blessed and glorious 
would it be for her thus to achieve complete deliverance 
from the necessity of walking and living by faith in 
another, even though that other were God himself, and to 
secure forever an independent and infallible wisdom and 
way and will of her own! How delightful to walk and 
live by sight, instead of by faith, and yet never err from 

1138 


114 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


the path of her own welfare and happiness! She hesi- 
tated no longer: 


Her rash hand in evil hour 
Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she ate. 
Earth felt the wound, and nature from her seat 
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe, 
That all was lost. 


Thus the will in the mother of mankind, the centre and 
substance of her personality, turned away its face finally 
from the authoritative wisdom of God, and yielding to the 
solicitations, put itself under the law, of her earthly and 
sensual nature. Jor in the very act of disobedience, she 
chose what seemed good in her own eyes, and rejected what 
had been marked as good for her by the command of God. 
Thus she consummated her bosom sin of questioning 
* doubt and unbelief. 

The sin of the woman was immediately reflected and re- 
produced in her husband. St. Paul, indeed, informs us 
that ‘‘ Adam was not deceived, but the woman being de- 
ceived was in the transgression.” His meaning may be no 
more than that he was not first deceived, and that she was 
first in the transgression. Or it may be that the under- 
standing of the man was not imposed upon by the sophism 
which was employed by the tempter, and which, in the light 
of the preceding discussion, it is easy to detect and char- 
acterize. for it was what is called in logic the petitio 
prineipri, or begging the question, in which the conclusion 
to be proved is covertly assumed. This becomes evident 
when we consider that the tempter, in proposing to the 
woman the ability to discriminate between good and eyil as 
the benefit which she would obtain by eating of the for- 
bidden tree, admitted that this was a power which she did 
not then possess. But he carefully slurred over the point, 
that, in the very act of eating contrary to the Divine com- 
mand, she must necessarily choose by her own wisdom, as 


—— 


THE ORIGINAL SIN 115 


if she were already in possession of this power : in other 
words, in order to obtain what she desired, she must act 
upon the assumption that she already possessed it. Now 
it may be that Adam was not deceived by this transparent 
sophism, and did not anticipate any such result from eating 
of the forbidden tree, but followed his wife in the trans- 
eression from the strength of connubial affection, because 
he could not bear to separate his destiny from hers. This 
was Milton’s understanding of the transaction : 


He scrupled not to eat, 
Against his better knowledge ; not deceived, 
But fondly overcome with female charm. 
Earth trembled ... and nature gave a second groan, 
Sky lowered, and, muttering thunder, some sad drops 
Wept at completing of the mortal sin 
Original. 


However this may be, it is certain that the sin of the 
man was the same in substance with that of the woman, 
as it was consummated in the same outward act. For in 
eating of the forbidden tree, she chose between good and 
evil by the light and wisdom of her earthly nature ; and 
it was by this nature that he was united to her in marriage, 
as appears from the emphasis placed upon the words, 
“This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. 
...They twain shall, be one flesh,” as, also, from the 
fact, that this union is dissolved by death, so that the sur- 
vivor is at liberty to contract another marriage. Adam, 
therefore, in allowing himself to be led by the suggestions 
and influence of his wife to transgress the Divine com- 
mand, yielded to the solicitations, and followed the guid- 
ance, of the same earthly nature in him. Thus his will, 
also, the centre and heart of his personality, turned its face 
away from the oracle of God, and put itself in subjection 
to his earthly and carnal nature. 

Thus it was, as here represented, that, by eating of the 
forbidden tree, and by the states of mind and heart therein 


116 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


implied, man ceased to recognize himself as an image of 
God, and ceased to reflect God’s distinctions between good 
and evil. Thus he lost faith in God—in His truth, good- 
ness, love and wisdom—and charged his Maker with deceit 
and malice. He ceased to prefer the wisdom and will of 
God to his own, and set up the light of his earthly nature 
as his criterion and law of discernment and choice be- 
tween good and evil. Thus he repudiated the authority 
of God over him and undertook to be a God to himself. 
He said in his heart, as the tempter had said before, “ I 
will be like the Most High.” And he carried his sin to 
the utmost extreme of impiety by profaning the holy sac- 
rament which his Heavenly Father had set up in the 
bosom of his daily life to nourish and develop his spiritual 
nature, and as the safeguard of his innocence and happi- 
ness. He sinned as the beloved disciple would have done, 
if, whilst he leaned upon the bosom of his Lord, instead of 
receiving the offered bread and wine, he had dashed them 
upon the ground, and trampled them under his feet. 

Thus the mind in man became “ the carnal mind,” and 
his will “ the will of the flesh.” Thus the mind and will 
of the flesh now became the criterion of his discernment 
and choice between good and evil—the supreme law of 
his life. If, now, by the insight and reasonings of his 
own creature wisdom, he could not comprehend the reasons 
upon which God’s commands were grounded, he would not 
submit to them, nor obey them. If he could not see how 
a thing would be good for him, or what good would result 
from it, he would not choose nor do it simply for the 
reason that it was marked as good and commanded by the 
wisdom and authority of God. If he could not see how 
a thing would be evil for him, or what evil would result 
from it, he would not eschew it simply because it was stig- 
matized as evil and forbidden by the wisdom and authority 
of God. Thus, also, man became immersed in the world 
of illusion—became ‘subject to vanity.’ For looking now 


THE ORIGINAL SIN 117 


at all things through the eyes of his earthly nature— 
of that wisdom which gave all its practical judgments 
from the earthly point of view—he could see nothing 
but earthly and perishable things. He lost perception of 
the unreal and shadowy nature of the phantoms of time 
and sense. The things which are invisible and spiritual, 
which only have substantial and eternal reality, became 
dim and shadowy and uncertain ; truth and error were in- 
volved in indistinguishable confusion. He was baptized 
into the great Satanic lie, by which the things of God have 
ever since been perverted—into the image of the father of 
lies. Viewed under the figure previously assumed, the 
will in man now became self-will, and, leaving the stew- 
ard’s office in this house of God, he entered the sacred 
chamber of the Divine presence, and seated himself upon 
God’s altar and throne; whence he began to issue his 
authoritative mandates to the household, as if he had been 
the conscience itself. Thus the chamber of knowledge be- 
came filled with doleful errors, delusions and chimeras ; the 
chamber of the affections with inordinate desires, unclean 
and monstrous passions ; and, in the outer hall of sensation, 
the appetites became as swine in their stye. 

It will be observed that, in this representation of 
the first sin, no attempt is made at a philosophical ex- 
planation of the origin of evil; and that, for the best of 
reasons. For how it was possible for a holy nature to 
pass out of its original holiness into sin, is, and must for- 
ever remain, a mystery inscrutable to our minds. In order 
to comprehend it, we must be able to discern the primal 
natures or essences of good and evil, which, as we have 
seen, is impossible to all finite intelligence. Consequently, 
for every creature that God has made, the origin of evil is 
an eternally insoluble problem. Indeed, it has been well 
observed by Neander that “ to explain evil is to justify it.” 
The demonstration which has been given of, the impossi- 
bility of the quadrature of the circle is not a whit more 


118 - WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


conclusive than that which might be given of the insolu- 
bility of this problem. The principal difference is, that, by 
the aid of the symbols employed in mathematical analysis, 
the logic in the one case is more easily mastered than in 
that of the other. Happy are they, beset with a specula- 
tive mind, who learn this, and cease to vex themselves 
with a question by which they must be eternally baffled. 
Now, in confirmation of the preceding views, we would 
be happy indeed, if we could refer to all the ablest inter- 


preters of Scripture who have ever treated of the subject. — 


Tt must be conceded, however, that this cannot be done. 
For, in a somewhat extensive course of reading with this 
object in view, we have been able to discover but one 
author whose authority can be fairly cited ; but he, as all 
will admit, was one of the greatest minds the world has 
ever seen, namely, Lord Bacon, the father of modern 
science. In his various writings, he frequently alludes to 
the Scriptural account of the fall, showing that he had 
made it a special study, and always in the sense of the 
following quotations: ‘ Man, when he was tempted, before 
he fell, had offered unto him this suggestion, that he should 
be like God: but how? not simply, but in this part, 
knowing good and evil... It was an aspiring desire in 
man to attain to the proud knowledge which defineth of 
good and eyil, with an intent to depend no more upon the 
commandments and prohibitions of God, but upon him- 
self and his own light, and to give law unto himself as a 
god, which was the original temptation.” * Here we have 
the whole matter in a nutshell, from which no one can fail 
to see that it was understood by this great man precisely 
as it has now been explained. But such confirmation is 
hardly needed. For we have abundant evidence, in addi- 
tion to that which appears on its face, of the soundness of 
this interpretation, in the flood of light which it pours 


* The latter of these quotations is taken from two passages in Lord 
Bacon’s*Works, Vol. I, pp. 82, 162. 


‘ nd el een 


belo — 


THE ORIGINAL SIN 119 


upon the nature of sin, upon the way of salvation by 
faith, and, indeed, upon the whole subsequent revelation. 
To these points we must now give some brief attention. 

Here, then, in this first transgression we have set forth 
in symbol or diagram the primal root and inmost essence 
of all sin, as consisting in the aspiration and attempt of 
the creature to possess and to exercise that incommunicable 
attribute and power of God by which He alone is able to 
discern and choose between good and evil by His own 
wisdom. But this aspiration in man must not be limited 
to the self-conscious operations of his mind. for the 
children of Adam, being propagated subsequently to his 
sin and fall, are born, as it would seem, in his moral like- 
ness, with a moral nature out of which there springs up 
spontaneously, as poison under the serpent’s tongue, the 
preference of their own wisdom and will, of what seems 
good in their own eyes, to the wisdom and will of God, to 
what is good in his sight. This inherited self-conceit, self- 
trust, self-assertion is the original corruption or pravity of 
man’s spiritual nature, and the substance, principle and 
root of that which in form, development and growth, be- 
comes in all men that self-conscious and active preference 
of their own wisdom and will to the wisdom and will of 
God in which all sin consists. 

There is, however, as from the symbolical character of 
this whole record we might anticipate, a beautiful similitude 
or reflection of paradisiac innocence in the infancy and 
childhood of human beings, which has been characterised 
by Lord Bacon as “the sparkle of the purity of man’s 
first estate.’ For during this period the Adam is yet 
undeveloped. The infant knows nothing of right or 
wrong, good or evil. By his own voluntary act he has 
not yet eaten of the forbidden tree—has not yet assumed 
to be a law unto himself. With instinctive and implicit 
faith he still hangs upon his mother, and feels himself to 
be safe and happy in her arms. In the most charming 


120 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


similitude of innocence he now dwells in paradise, free from 
shame, toil and sorrow, where all his wants are supplied 
without his foresight or care, where all nature blooms out 
on his opening senses, and where every sense is filled with 
delight. In this state, he is one of those little ones of 
whom St. Paul tells us that they “ have not sinned after the 
similitude of Adam’s transgression,” and concerning whom 
our Lord declares that “of such is the kingdom of 
heaven.” 

But, in the natural development of every human child, 
apart from grace, there comes a time when he begins to 
question the wisdom and authority of his parents as the 
law of distinction between good and evil for him, and to 
assert a wisdom and choice and will of his own. Uncon- 
sciously at first, consciously afterwards, his questionings 
spontaneously arise: Is not this food, or this amusement, 
or this mode of dress good for him—adapted to give him 
pleasure? He can see no harm in it. Why, then, is it 
prohibited? He can see no reason for it. For, being 
ignorant of what his parents know of good and evil, be- 
cause he is without their experience, it seems to him that 
their commands and prohibitions are not based upon good 
and sufficient reasons; consequently that it is harsh and 
arbitrary in them to hold him under an authority which 
will not condescend to justify itself in his eyes. And, 
now, having begun to question and doubt the wisdom and 
love of his parents, he is ready to impute toe them un- 
worthy motives: They love to govern him; they take 
pleasure in making him do what is disagreeable and irk- 
some. ‘Thus he sets up his own wisdom and will against: 
theirs as his law of distinction and choice between good 
and evil; thus he begins to eat of the forbidden tree. 
Nor let it be supposed that such mental processes are too 
subtle for the minds of very young children ; for although 
they may not come up into clear consciousness, nor find 
expression in words, yet the substance of all this must 


=e 


ae 


THE ORIGINAL SIN 491 


evidently be in every child before he can proceed to any 
outward act of disobedience. 

In the meantime, the law of God has made its appear- 
ance in the consciousness of the child, commanding and 
forbidding with the voice of absolute authority, 7. e., with- 
out any explanation of the reasons upon which its myste- 
rious. distinctions are grounded. Whence this new law 
and authority over him who has already lost faith in, 
and cast off that of his parents? He does not believe 
in it. Because he cannot know what God knows concern- 
ing good and evil, nor comprehend the infinite series of 
effects and consequences which will flow from his actions, 
he will not believe that the things which God commands 
or forbids are good or evil for him. Hence he disobeys 
and rebels. He will follow his own judgment in choosing 
between good and evil. In this way, that which has 
already taken place in respect to his parents and their 


- law, naturally repeats itself in respect to God and His 


law ; that in him which has already asserted independence 
of the authority of his parents now asserts for itself in- 
dependence of the authority of God. Thus he sets up 
his own wisdom and will against the wisdom and will of God 
as his guide and law of distinction and choice between good 
and evil, and thereby perfects his transgression of eating 
of the forbidden tree. Neither shall he die at all. He fully 
believes that he is competent to walk by his own light, to be 
a law unto himself. Consciously or unconsciously, in spirit, 
if not in processes of thought, in substance, if not in the 


precise forms here represented, all this must precede every 


known and voluntary transgression of the Divine law. 
More deadly still does all this become when the length 
and breadth and searching spirituality of this law is re- 
vealed to the sinner. When he learns -that it forbids, not 
only outward acts, but also appetites, desires and other 
affections, the most secret thoughts, dispositions of heart, 
and states of mind, what he has long felt and now loves 


122 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


to feel, and what does not seem to be subject to his own 
control—and _ these, under the direst penalties, “the worm 
that never dies,’ and “the fire that never shall be 
quenched,”—then, apart from grace, it naturally seems to 
him that God deals with him in the most tyrannical and 
cruel manner. What! has He created me with these 
desires, and will He damn me because they burn? He 
has given me reason, and forbids me to use it! He com- 
mands me to exercise faith and love towards Him when 
faith and love are not in my own power! Here the 
carnal mind becomes enmity against God. The sinner 
would dethrone God if he could. The law in its spirit- 
uality and power awakens into life and activity the sin 
[@uaprt¢a]| which before lay dead, or comparatively inactive 
in his soul, and he dies the death in trespasses and sins. 
We have here the meaning of those words of St. Paul 
which have been so much misunderstood: “ I was alive 
once without the law; but when the commandment came, 
sin revived, and I died... For without the law sin was 
dead. .. The strength of sin is the law.” 

It is true, indeed, that the faith of Christ in the parents, 
and working through them in a thousand effectual ways 
upon their children, does often restrain the Adamic nature 
from rushing into such wild excess, even where the chil- 
dren are not the subjects of regenerating and sanctifying 
grace. ‘To many, also, even in Christian countries, the 
Divine law never comes with such revelation of its spirit- 
ual exactions as to call into full activity this slumbering 
enmity against God; and, with respect to the heathen, 
being without the law, except as an uncertain and con- 
fused echo of it may be heard in their consciences, they 
cannot come under its unmitigated condemnation. But 
the root or germ of all this is in every child of Adam; 
and it is in consequence of this that ‘death reigns over 
all, even those who know not the law, and have not sinned 
after the similitude of Adam’s transgression.’ 


THE ORIGINAL SIN 123 


Not unfrequently, however, the development of the 
Adam in children is facilitated and hastened, rather than 
repressed, by parental treatment and influence. For whilst 
the child hangs upon his parents in conscious dependence 
and instinctive faith, they are to him in the place of God, 
and his filial subjection and obedience to them are or- 
dained to educate and prepare him for filial subjection 
and obedience to his Heavenly Father. The grand object 
of the parental law and authority is, that it may pre- 
figure and usher in the law of God, as springing from 
His incomprehensible wisdom and unfathomable love, and 
as representing His authority. When it fails to serve 
this purpose it is an utter failure. Consequently no pains 
should be spared to train up the child in the obedience of 
implicit faith and filial love, as opposed to that of sight 
and reasoning. By all possible means, his mind should 
be imbued with the conviction that his own wisdom can 
never be an adequate or safe guide for him to follow in 
the distinction and choice between good and evil, and that 
he must ever be implicitly submissive and obedient to an 
authority above him, the reasons of whose commands and 
prohibitions he can never comprehend, whose wisdom and 
love he must never question or doubt, and that thus only 
can it be well with him, either in this life or in that 
which is to come. And when the spirit of questioning 
and disobedience begins to manifest itself, the parents, as 
we see in this record of the original sin, ought simply and 
affectionately, yet with all solemnity and emphasis, to re- 
affirm their commands, but by no means to attempt any 
explanation of the reasons upon which they are grounded. 
For the best reason, and perhaps the only one that should 
ever be given, for a child’s obedience, is, that his parents, 
in the superiority of their wisdom, in the fulness of their 
love, and in the plenitude of their authority, have given 
him a command. Yet he should be subject to the fewest 
possible restraints. He should have the free range of his 


124 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


native paradise... And every command should be given 
with the gentlest voice and manner, in the fewest and 
simplest words. But for every transgression of a known 
command, and for nothing else, chastisement should be 
administered with all tenderness, yet with unswerving 
fidelity. This is the wisdom of God for the training of 
children; and woe to the age and world which have found 
for themselves another wisdom! 

But instead of this, nothing is more common than for 
parents to argue with their children, endeavoring to make 
- them comprehend the reasons for which they are required 
to do anything, that they may be led to see that it is good, 
and may choose it for themselves. Now this is to assume 
the truth of the original Satanic lie, that, if the matter be 
properly explained to them, they are capable of discerning 
and choosing between good and evil by their own wisdom. 
For the wisdom of the parent can no more justify itself to 
the child’s mind than the wisdom of God could justify 
itself to the minds of His first human children. Hence, 
whenever such an appeal is made to the reason or judg- 
ment of the child to sanction a parental command, that 
judgment, if it be honest, is always liable to go against the 
command ; in which case, the parent is reduced to the ne- 
cessity, Shee of allowing the child to do as he pleases, or 
of flying from, the pidemeat to which he himself has ap- 
pealed. Often parents are amazed and confounded at 
what seems to them the stupidity or perverseness of their 
children, because, after the matter has been fully explained 
to them, they are not at all convinced, but desire to do 
what is forbidden just as much as before. But the stu- 
pidity is in the parents: woe to them, and unto their chil- 
dren, and unto their children’s children, to the third and 
fourth generation, that it is! For thus they stand to their 
children in the place of the original tempter. They lead 
them up to the forbidden tree, show them its fruit, so fair 
to the eye and good for food, and so desirable to make 


THE ORIGINAL SIN 125 


them wise, and invite them to pluck and eat—to do that 
which expels them from their beautiful paradise of sim- 
plicity, innocence and happiness, and sends them forth into 
a world full of thorns and thistles—to do that which works 
death in their souls. For when the law of God, which 
cannot give its reasons, comes to the child, it finds him 
already trained to regard his own wisdom as adequate to 
his discernment between good and evil; it finds him al- 
ready in rebellion against the authority of the law. Alas 
for the child! Through the influence of his parents, he 
has sinned and fallen before he has come to know that 
there is any right or wrong, or any God. And ‘woe unto 
the world because of the offences which are thus committed 
against the Lord’s little ones!’ 

The view which has now been presented of the genesis, 
nature and propagation of sin is further and strongly con- 
firmed by the flood of light which it pours upon the whole 
subsequent Scripture. Of this, however, we can give here 
only a few examples. 

Here, then, in the first place, we see why such vast im- 
portance was attached to parental authority and training 
in the covenant which God made with Abraham, in which 
it was the prescribed means for the realization and fulfil- 
ment of the covenant promises. We have this stated in 
the words of God as follows: “ For I know him, that he 
will command his children and his household after’ him, 
and they shall keep the way of the Lord to do justice and 
judgment; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that 
which he hath spoken of him.” Also, this view enables 
us to comprehend the deep significance which is every- 
where in the Word ascribed to disobedience of parents, 
namely, because it is the first stage in the development of 
the original sin; because it is rebellion against God in 
germ. For this reason, in the decalogue, it is classed with 
idolatry, adultery and murder, and prohibited, with the 
promise of long life to filial reverence and obedience: and 


125 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


hence, when it became incorrigible, it was punished, under 
the Mosaic law, with death by stoning. 

Again, we have here exhibited in a new light the 
nature, object and necessity of the moral law, as revealed 
in the Scriptures. For in this law God sets forth His 
distinctions between what is good and what is evil for man. 
He does not make anything either good or evil by simply 
commanding or forbidding it. In the moral law, as dis- 
tinguished from positive and temporary enactments, He 
commands only what is good in itself, was good before, 
and would have been good, if He had never commanded it. 
He forbids nothing but what is evil in itself, was evil before, 
and would have been evil, if He had never forbidden it. 
Now this ‘holy and just and good law,’ having been 
originally written upon the heart of man, was necessarily 
defaced and obscured by sin, so that his conscience no 
longer gave forth its oracles of distinction between good 
and evil with its former certainty, fulness and authority. 
In man’s fallen state, the clamor of rebellious appetite and 
passion confuses the voice of God in his soul, so that he 
is ever liable to mistake evil for good, and good for evil. 
Hence, in order that salvation from sin should be possible, 
a necessity arose that God should reveal the moral law in 
anew and absolutely perfect outward form, that by its 
distinctions everything claiming to be a deliverance of the 
conscience might be tested, and that so an infallible direc- 
tion and guidance for human life might be recovered. 

Moreover, we see here why sincere obedience to the law 
of God, or true piety, is everywhere in the Word identified 
with wisdom, and sin with folly—why the good man is 
always the wise man, and the sinner a fool. For even the 
worst of sins—idolatry, incest and murder—are characterised 
as foolishness, and no more criminal charge is ever brought 
against any man than that “he hath wrought folly in 
Israel.’ And the reason of this becomes evident, when 
we consider that wisdom, properly defined, is the practical 


THE ORIGINAL SIN 127 


choice of that which is good for the chooser himself; and 
folly, similarly defined, is the practical choice of that 
which is evil for the chooser himself: when we consider, 
also, that, for the choice of good, and the eschewing of 
evil, the wisdom of God is the only infallible criterion and 
guide. Hence it follows, that he who governs himself by 
this wisdom chooses what is good for himself, and he 
who departs from it, and puts himself under the guidance 
of his own wisdom, chooses, of necessity, what does harm 
to himself. Now this identification between piety and 
wisdom, and between sin and folly, stands out in the whole 
word of God, and is the general theme of the book of 
Proverbs, running through all the amazing variety of its 


‘sacred apothegms, as a golden thread through a necklace 


of pearls; nor is it possible fully to appreciate any one of 
them without reference to this leading idea which gives 
unity to them all. Thus, in the first chapter and else- 
where, with almost endless repetition: “ The fear of the 
Lord is the beginning [literally, the principle] of knowl- 
edge... The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wis- 
dom, and the knowledge of the holy is understanding. 
_..Be not wise in thine own eyes:..Lean not to 
thine own understanding... Fools despise wisdom 
and instruction... The prosperity of fools shall de- 
stroy them... They lay wait for their own blood ; they 
lurk privily for their own lives.” This identification 
is found, also, upon the old Egyptian monuments, in the 
hieroglyphical records of that wisdom in which Moses 
was educated, and which probably was derived from a 
primitive revelation ; for there the sign which is always 
translated “the wicked” is that of a man breaking his 
own head with an axe. In like manner, sin is identified 
with pride, and piety with humility, or meekness, which 
commonly signifies that state of mind which 1s submissive 
and obedient to the Divine commands; and it is in this sense 
we are to understand the words: “The meek shall inherit 


128 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


the land,’ and those in which it is said that “the man 
Moses was very mage, above all the men which were upon 
the face of the Lol On the other hand, “ the proud ” 
and “scorners” invariably signify the Aisohedince the 
wicked. The reason of all this is, that the pious have 
not, and the wicked have, such a proud conceit of their 
own wisdom, as a sufficient guide and law of distinction 
between good and evil, that the former do, and the latter 
do not, humble themselves to believe in, and submit to, 
the distinction which God gives them in his authoritative 
commands and prohibitions. 

In fine, we see here why it is that, in God’s way of sal- 
vation, everything is made to turn upon faith. For Scrip- 
tural faith necessarily implies in man the renunciation of 
his own wisdom as folly—of what seems good in his own 
eyes—and the adoption in its place of the wisdom of God 
—of what is good in His sight—as this is revealed in 
Christ. He who truly believes receives Christ as the Lord 
of his reason, affections and will, of his heart and con- 
science, of his whole life. By this faith he is assured that 
all things are as Christ represents them; that what He 
commands is good, and only good, and what He forbids is 
evil,and only evil, for himself and all mankind. The 
question of all truth for him is, not what he thinks, but 
what Christ thinks. The question of all practical conduct 
is, not what seems good or evil to him—not what he ap- 
proves or disapproves, desires or does not desire—but, 
simply, what his Lord has commanded or forbidden. And, 
by the same principle, his heart is governed in all his rela- 
tions to the Divine ‘providence ; so that, according to the 
strength of his faith, he has no mind or will of his own; 
in their place to him are the mind and will of his Lord. 
He no longer judges of anything by his own wisdom, 
which he recognizes as perfect folly, but looks at all things, 
so to speak, through the eyes of his Lord, whose wisdom 
he cordially receives as the supreme law of his discernment 


=> 
< ~. 


~ el 


THE ORIGINAL SIN 129 


and choice between good and evil. With his Lord’s 
reasons, whether in the requirements of the law, the 
obligations of grace, or the dispensations of Providence, 
he instinctively feels that he has nothing to do; that his 
whole duty is that of filial submission and obedience ; in 
which he enjoys the sweetest assurance that all things shall 
be made to work together for his good. Thus the words 
of St. Paul are fulfilled in him: “If any man thinketh 
himself to be wise, let him become a fool that he may be 
wise:” and those other words by the prophet concerning 
the Lord himself: “ Who is blind as my Servant? or 
deaf as my Messenger that I sent? Who is blind as He 
that is perfect? or blind as the Lord’s Servant?... 
He shall not judge after the sight of His own eyes, nor 
reprove after the hearing of His ownears; but with right- 
eousness shall He judge.” Thus it is, and not otherwise, 
that man recovers what was lost in the fall. 

It should be observed, in conclusion, that this view of 
the original sin is contained substantially in most of the 
traditions concerning it which have been preserved among 
the heathen. As a single example, according to the Greek 
mythology, the sin of the first man consisted in an attempt 
which he had made to ascend into heaven to steal the fire, 
i. e. the light or wisdom of the gods. For his punish- 
ment, a woman was created and bestowed upon him. She 
was endowed with every female perfection. Venus gave 
her beauty, with all irresistible attractions, and filled her 
heart with the desire of pleasing. The god of eloquence 
touched her lips with persuasion. Apollo taught her music. 
Minerva instructed her in all useful arts. The Hours 
and the Graces decked her with every winning ornament. 
Each of the deities conferred upon her some precious gift. 
Last of ali, Zeus placed in her hand a mystical casket, 
enjoining upon her, under the most terrible penalties, never 
to open it. Thus endowed, she was presented to her hus- 


band. But, overcome in evil hour by the desire of forbid- 
6* 


130 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


den knowledge, she broke the seal of the fatal casket, and 
forth flew from within all the cares, sorrows and mala- 
dies of human life. Too late she tried to close it, but in 
vain. Hope alone remained at the bottom, which she 
carefully preserved and handed down to her posterity, now 
all she had to leave them.* Dimmed and obscured, in- 
deed, it is, yet it reflects the nature of the original sin. It 
isa far-off echo of the mournful truth, sounding across 
the abysm of ages, through the toil and sorrow and 
death which have universally prevailed, pitiful as the wail 
of the young mother over her dead child, not without the 
hope that, though it be dead, it shall live again. 


* See Hesiod, Theog. 521, and Opera et Dies, 47. 


vil 
THE TEMPTER 


Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field 
which the Lord God had made. . . . And the Lord God said unto 
the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all 
cattle, and above every beast of the field: upon thy belly shalt 
thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. And I 
will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy 
seed and her Seed. He shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt 
bruise His heel. 


Accorprna to the bare literal sense of this record, 
the tempter of the first human beings was a serpent 
or snake, and nothing more. But this loathsome rep- 
tile is the chosen Scriptural symbol of the great spirit- 
ual adversary of God and man, as we find it elsewhere 
and in the words of St. John: “That old serpent which 
is the devil and Satan.” Hence there is no room for 
doubt but that it was he who, under the form of a serpent, 
exercised the subtle malignity of his nature in the primal 
temptation. Nor does the curse subsequently pronounced 
upon the creature, as the instrument of Satan, imply that 
its form, motions, or habits were different before from 
what they have been ever since. For the judgment of 
labor upon man does not imply that he had previously 
lived in idleness. On the contrary, it is expressly stated 
that he was placed in the garden,of Eden “to dress it and 
to keep it.” Nor do the sorrows of parturition inflicted 
on the woman imply that in a state of innocence she 
would never have borne children. The more probable 


view of such matters is, that those conditions of nature 
131 


132 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


which otherwise would have been productive of no incon- 
venience, became punishments or chastisements in conse- 
quence of sin. We may reasonably understand, then, 
that it was the serpent, as we know it now, which was 
chosen by the tempter as his instrument for the purpose 
of reflecting his own moral character in place of the 
image of God in man. In this choice he may have been 
guided by his native subtlety, discerning that, of all crea- 
tures, this one constituted the most perfect symbol of him- 
self; or, which is more probable, this whole transaction 
may have been overruled by the good providence of God 
for the instruction of mankind in all subsequent ages. 
With respect to the subtlety which is here ascribed to 
the serpent, it belongs to the animal mind, that sensual 
wisdom with which the earthly nature, both in man and 
in the inferior creatures, is endowed. The most prominent 
characteristics of this earthly mind, are, as we have seen, 
that it is incapable of the distinction between right and 
wrong, and of the knowledge of the spiritual world, and 
that it gives all its practical judgments from the earthly 
point of view, solely for the gratification of the appetites, 
passions and other affections of the material nature at 
whose head it stands. In mere animals, however, it is not 
an evil, but a good. In fact, it is the supreme excellence 
of all those creatures which have no moral nature, unless 
instinct be placed above it. It is only when subtlety is 
predicated of moral beings that the word is used in a bad 
sense. We do not call him a subtle, crafty, or cunning 
person in whose character truth, justice, fidelity are the 
most prominent traits; in whom this calculating and 
selfish craft is held in subjection to the laws of moral 
obligation ; whose prudential wisdom is informed, subdued 
and controlled by the authority of God’s commands. 
This is not subtlety, but wisdom, in the Scriptural and 
noblest sense of the word. It is not a little strange, how- 
ever, that of all animals, the serpent should be represented 


EEE 


THE TEMPTER Los 


as the most highly endowed with this sensual wisdom. 
But we know that mysterious attributes and powers have 
always and everywhere been ascribed to it, in consequence 
of which serpent-worship has prevailed, at one time or 
another, over nearly or quite the whole world; nor has it 
ever been satisfactorily explained how the creature has 
been able to make such a deep and universal impression 
upon the human mind. Perhaps, when science shall 
have solved this problem, there will be nothing surprising 
in the manner in which it is here characterized. 

But we find other qualities and conditions in this reptile 
which, although apparently inconsistent, are, in fact, closely 
connected with the quality here ascribed to it. Jor it is 
the most gluttonous of all creatures. In the words of an 
eminent naturalist: “These frightful creatures are vora- 
cious above all others, and happy is it for mankind that 
their voracity is often their punishment ;” for the nature 
of which this sensual wisdom is the head knows no law 
but the gratification of its own greedy appetites and pas- 
sions. Also, the serpent grovels upon its belly, with its 
eyes nearly level with the ground, so that it can see only 
the shortest distance ahead: for subtlety is a grovelling 
quality, and ever short-sighted withal.. The only far- 
sighted wisdom is that of instinct in animals, and that of 
conscience in man. Again, the serpent moves forwards 
to its object, not in a straight or direct line but by oblique, 
complicated and tortuous involutions and evolutions of its 
body; in allusion to which, as also to the preceding case, 
we have the following from Lord Bacon: “We take 
cunning to be a sinister or crooked wisdom.... These 
windings or crooked courses are the goings of the serpent, 
which -goeth basely on the belly, and not on feet.” More- 
over, the serpent alone, of all creatures, has a double 
tongue, which, in all ages among all nations, has been 
taken as the most expressive symbol of malignant false- 
hood and deceit. In fine, in its typical species, its mouth 


134 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


is full of deadly poison, which it ever seeks, by means of 
its fatal fangs, to inject into “the blood which is the life” 
of all other creatures. For it is the mortal enemy of 
everything that lives and breathes, especially of man, and 
naturally man is its enemy. The object of its worship, 
doubtless, has been to propitiate and avert its malignant 
power. 

Such, then, was the creature in which the great spiritual 
adversary of God and man became incarnate, in order to 
effect his diabolical purpose, being led to make this choice, 
either by the overruling providence of God, or by his own 
subtlety, because he found in the form, motions, character 
and conditions of this reptile the only suitable and ade- 
quate symbol of his own fallen and ruined nature. And 
this symbol is full of instruction for all mankind. For 
it teaches us that the wisdom of Satan is subtlety: in other 
words, he does not hold himself in any wise amenable to 
the direct, straight, authoritative guidance of the wisdom 
of God—he has no conscience—but relies wholly upon 
his own prudential faculties to discriminate and choose 
between what is good and what is evil for himself. He 
is incapable of looking upwards with reverence to that 
which is above him—to anything that is true or pure or 
beautiful or holy. The only views which he can take of 
such things excite his enmity and malignity. He looks 
at all things solely from the earthly point of view, and 
reaches all his practical judgments by the tortuous invo- 
lutions and evolutions of his own subtlety. He is of an 
infinitely base and grovelling nature, whose meat and drink 
it is to have his own selfish way, and to do his own 
malignant will—ravenous and greedy beyond conception 
for the gratification of the lowest, most filthy and abom- 
inable lusts; chief among which is his lust of torment— 
a raging desire to inflict suffering and misery upon all 
other creatures, into whose life he is ever seeking to inject 


that deadly poison of deceit and falsehood of which his 


THE TEMPTER 135 


own mouth is full: “ When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh 
of his own, for he isa liar and the father of it....He 
was a murderer from the beginning.” He wages impla- 
cable warfare: against everything above him, especially 
against God and against God’s image in man, under 
whose bruised heel he thereby places his own head to be 
crushed. Consequently, he is ever short-sighted. He 
overreaches himself in everything that he does, frustrates 
his own purposes and objects, and brings upon his own 
head the evil which he seeks to inflict upon others. He 
is wise only to do evil to others and to himself, which is 
the perfection of folly. 

Here, then, we have symbolically represented the serpent- 
like character of the spiritual tempter of man; and these 
ideas are still further developed in the malediction pro- 
nounced upon the creature for its agency in the temptation, 
upon its seed, and upon the adversary who became in- 
carnate in it in order to effect his diabolical object. In 
fact, this malediction must be interpreted as a Divine sym- 
bol of even more profound significance than any other of 
the series, inasmuch as it contains a glorious prophecy of 
the ultimate triumph of good over evil in this world, and 
a reference to the incarnation and sacrifice of the Lord, by 
which this triumph should be achieved. For as the ser- 
pent is the symbol of Satan, so the seed of the serpent 
represents Satan’s image or likeness in man; and the 
Seed of the woman includes all her posterity with special 
reference to Him who was born of a virgin, and who 
suffered on the cross all the rage and malice of the ad- 
versary. 

The serpent-like malice of Satan, together with the 
shortsighted folly of his wisdom or subtlety, are strikingly 
exhibited and copiously illustrated in his whole Scriptural 
history. For he was certainly prompted in his temptation 
of our first parents by his enmity against mankind, which 
enmity, it should be observed, did not originate from this 


136 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


malediction ; and his folly is exemplified in the fact, that 
he thereby brought himself under the wrath and curse of 
God, placed his own head under the heel of the Seed of 
the woman to be crushed, and opened the way for such 
revelations of the grace and whole character of God as 
otherwise would have been impossible. Thus he more 
than frustrated his own purposes and objects. Also, by 
his temptation of Job he succeeded only in perfecting the 
spiritual life of the patriarch, in promoting his more 
abundant temporal prosperity, and in furnishing the ma- 
terials for a book of the most sublime revelations, which 
has been the source of unspeakable consolation to God’s 
tempted and afflicted people, and of instruction in the 
mysteries of Divine providence, in all subsequent ages. 
In like manner, in his temptation of the great Seed of the 
woman, he suffered an ignominious defeat, and caused Him 
to pass through that experience which was indispensable 
to His perfection as a succorer and Savior cf tempted and 
afflicted souls. Even in his greatest achievement, in which 
he tempted Judas to betray, and the Jews to crucify the 
Lord of glory, he made himself the instrument of exalt- 
ing the object of his enmity above every creature, of 
placing the government of the universe upon His shoulder, 
and of laying the only foundation which could be laid for 
the salvation of mankind. Thus, where, doubtless, he 
thought he had obtained a final victory, he ensured the 
object which he aimed to defeat, and destroyed his own 
power. For Christ suffered “ that through death He might 
destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, 
and deliver them who through fear of death were all their 
lifetime subject to bondage.” We see the same thing in 
his persecutions of the primitive Christians, in which ‘the 
blood of the martyrs became the seed of the church,’ and 
in all other manifestations of his enmity against the Seed 
of the woman ; and we shall yet see, as the final result, 
that ‘he shall be cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, 


THE TEMPTER 137 


where he shall be tormented day and night forever and 
ever—in everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his 
angels,’ 

But this powerful symbol represents, not only the curse 
of the adversary himself, but also that of his seed, the 
serpent in man. For it is in this sense that the Scribes 
and Pharisees are called a “ generation of vipers,” “children 
of the devil,” and Elymas the sorcerer is addressed in the 
words: “O full of all subtlety and mischief, thou child of 
_ the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not 
cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord?” In all the 
particulars in which the symbol characterizes Satan him- 
self, it characterizes also his seed. For the head of the 
serpent in man is this same subtlety, which being essentially 
“earthly,” as belonging to his animal nature, becomes, 
when exalted into the place of the wisdom of God as 
the guide and law of discernment between good and evil, 
both “sensual and devilish.” It is true, indeed, that by 
the light of this wisdom man may atta to the knowledge 
of earthly things, and may possess himself of the perish- 
able wealth of this world, but, when he falls wholly under 
it, the light of spiritual life in his soul goes out in Egyptian 
darkness, he becomes blind to spiritual things, and he loses 
the imperishable treasures of heayen. Speak to him now 
of the beauty or glory of meekness under insult, of love 
to his enemies, of returning good for evil, or of self-sacri- 
fice in any form, and he knows not what you mean. Show 
him any one who follows the example of Christ, spending 
his time, wealth, strength, and perhaps his life for others’ 
good, and all that he sees is a hypocrite, a fanatic, or a fool. 
Lead him to the cross of Calvary, and he will exclaim : 
“He saved others, himself He cannot save.... Let Him 
now come down from the cross, and we will believe.” 
And if, in the last depths of this spiritual blindness, you 
speak to him of right and wrong, God or spirit, he will 
answer, as thousands are now doing: “I cannot see, nor 


138 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


hear, nor feel, nor taste, nor smell God, nor spirit, nor 
right, nor wrong. “There is no God.” Heis a phantom 
of the imagination, created by fear. There is no right nor 
wrong but pleasure and pain. Thus, under the law of 
this serpentine wisdom, the spiritual nature of man loses 
its power to stand and walk uprightly, it falls over into a 
prone and crawling motion, with its face to the ground. 
On his belly the man goes, and eats dirt, all the days of 
his miserable life. He feeds upon the bread of deceit, 
envy, pride, vanity, lust and malignity. He is given over 
to a reprobate mind to work all uncleanness with greediness. 
Evil he calls good, and good evil. His mouth is full of 
cursing and bitterness. The poison of asps is under his 
tongue. Thus theimage of God in man is replaced by the 
image of Satan. 

But that which is most wonderful and prodigious in all 
this is the fierce enmity of the seed of the serpent against 
the Seed of the woman. For all history is full of it. 
Even before the Lotd came into the world, His holy proph- 
ets and most devoted people “had trial of cruel mock- 
ings and scourgings.... They were stoned, they were 
sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword. 
They wandered about in sheep-skins and goat-skins, being 
destitute, afflicted, tormented....Of whom the world 
was not worthy.” When He appeared in all the tran- 
scendent beauty and glory of His person and character, 
clothed with immaculate innocence and purity, the fulness 
of His Divine life overflowing in streams of compassion 
and love for all mankind, how unspeakably shameful was 
the treatment He received! His stupendous miracles of 
benevolence and healing, which they could not deny, they 
ascribed to “ Beélzebub, the prince of the devils.” Those 
whom He came to save reviled Him, spit upon Him, 
scourged Him, and finally crucified Him between two 
thieves. And His followers in the first ages—how were 
they treated? What is the meaning of the martyrology 


a 


THE TEMPTER 139 


of the church? What prompted a Roman emperor to light 
the public gardens with living Christians smeared over 
with pitch and set on fire? Whence the delight of the 
Roman populace when they beheld them torn in pieces by 
wild beasts in the amphitheatre? And these persecutions 
raged in different provinces of the civilized world, with 
brief intervals, for more than three centuries, during 
which, without exaggeration, millions of Christians, men, 
women and children, were tormented and murdered to 
feed the enmity of the serpent in man against the Seed of 
the woman. Nor has this enmity ever been appeased. In 
modern times, the great Frederick II of Prussia and the 
infidel Voltaire carried on a correspondence, in which they 
closed their letters to each other, as is well known, with 
the words, “Crush the wretch,” meaning the Lord Jesus 
Christ. And what had He done to these mighty “sons of 
Belial” to draw upon himself their so fierce and deadly 
malignity? In like manner, the infidel philosophers of 
the last century put forth all their tremendous powers of 
argument, wit and sarcasm to destroy the Christian religion 
out of the world: equal malignity against it was manifested 
by the leading characters of the French revolution: to all 
which must be added, in our own times, the enmity of 
socialism, nihilism, and “science falsely so called.” For 
with what motive do sceptical scientists take such pains to 
convince us that there is no God, or, if there be, that He 
cannot answer our prayers, nor come to our help, when we 
ery to Him in our distresses and sorrows? Why should 
they go out of their way and labor to deprive us of the 
hope of immortality ; to persuade us that our souls perish 
with our mouldering bodies, and that we become as if we 
had never been? What interest can science possibly have 
in such horrible conclusions? Who can fail to recognize 
the animus by which all this is inspired? In the words 
of the Lord himself, “an enemy hath done this.” It is 
all the quenchless enmity of the seed of the serpent against 
the Seed of the woman. 


140 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


Thus we see how one part of this symbolical prophecy—- 
the prediction that ‘the serpent should bruise the heel of 
the Seed of the woman’—is fulfilled: not less striking is 
the fulfilment of the other part, that ‘the Seed of the wo- 
man should crush the serpent’s head.’ For the whole his- 
tory of Christ in the days of His flesh was a series of 
victories over His great enemy. Though frequently as- 
sailed by the most subtle and powerful temptations, He 
resisted and overcame them all, and lived a life of perfect 
innocence and holiness. All His miracles were wrought in 
destruction of the works of Satan—the fruits and conse- 
quences of sin. It is only from this point of view that we 
can rightly comprehend His mighty works of healing the 
most malignant and otherwise incurable diseases, opening 
the eyes of the blind, unstopping the ears of the deaf, 
causing the lame to walk, casting out devils, and raising 
the dead. For in an unfallen world, there surely had 
been no place for such phenomena. And, as the Life 
itself, He rose from under the power of death, after all 
that was mortal in Him had been “crucified, dead and 
buried,” whereby He brought up out of the dark and 
loathsome grave light, life and immortality for all His 
people. ‘Through death He destroyed him that had the 
power of death, that is, the devil’ From His sacrificial 
death, inflicted upon him by the enmity of Satan and his 
seed, have flowed to mankind all the blessings of. the 
Christian religion. Upon the cross ‘He spoiled all the 
principalities and powers of evil, and made them a specta- 
cle of mockery for the folly of their wisdom, openly tri- 
umphing over them in it. And hardly less signal was 
His triumph over them in their persecutions of the primi- 
tive church, when the patience and constancy of her innu- 
merable martyrs drew the attention of all mankind, and 
exerted an overwhelming influence to convince them that 
such faith and patience must be truly Divine.” 

These examples of the crushing of the serpent’s head, 
in which his wisdom is shown to be the perfection of folly, 


THE TEMPTER 141 


his greatest successes to be his greatest defeats, accomplish- 
ing the very objects which he labors to frustrate, saving 
those whom he plots to destroy, are such as to awaken in 
all rational souls the most confident assurance and expec- 
tation that everything else in which he is permitted to 
bruise the heel of the Seed of the woman will further con- 
tribute to the final destruction of his power. Thus, doubt- 
less, his present work in the Roman apostasy, denying 
the word of God to the people, prohibiting lawful mar- 
riage to the clergy, dogmatizing the infallibility of the 
pope, and the immaculate conception of the virgin mother 
of the Lord, and setting her up as an idol goddess and 
mediatrix between Christ and human souls—doubtless all 
this horrible impiety shall be overruled for good, and 


Satan’s wisdom in it be made to appear as folly, no less 


than in his crucifixion of the Lord, and his persecutions 
of the martyr-church. Thus, also, the assaults of modern 
scepticism, though they be not joyous for the present, but 
very grievous—distressing ofttimes to sincere souls as the 
Master’s death to his first disciples—yet is it no great 
stretch of faith to believe that they shall be made the 
means of establishing more firmly than ever the great 


_ truths which they call in question or deny; namely, 


that there is a God, that He has revealed himself to us 
in the Holy Scriptures, that He is our Heavenly Father, 
that He hears and answers our prayers, that Christ, by His 
holy sacrifice, has redeemed us from sin, death and hell, 
and that all who believe in Him shall be saved. The 
faith of these mighty truths shall surely come forth from 
all these conflicts as gold tried in the furnace. And as it 
appears that serpent-worship, in order to propitiate the 
powers of evil, has prevailed over the whole world, so 
“the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory 
of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” Not until then 
shall we understand the full significance of this grand 
symbolic prophecy, that ‘the Seed of the woman shall 
crush the serpent’s head.’ 


Vill 
FIG- LEAVES 


And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that 
they were naked, and they sewed fig-leaves together, and made 
themselves aprons. And they heard the voice of the Lord God 
walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his 
wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God in the 
midst of the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called unto 
Adam and said, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice 
in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid 
myself. And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? 
Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou 
shouldst not eat? And the man said, The woman whom thou 
gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And 
the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast 
done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me [caused me 
to forget] and I did eat. 


THE views of the original sin which have been given 
we find confirmed and illustrated, not only in the curse 
upon the serpent, but also in all the other transactions 
which are recorded as immediately following the trans- 
gression, and which are to be interpreted as symbols 
precisely similar to those which have been already analyzed. 

The first of these is that of the shame of the naked 
body which arose and manifested itself in our first parents 
after they had sinned. For in their estate of innocence, 
as we are significantly informed, “they were both naked, 
the man and his wife, and were not ashamed ;” and this, 
no doubt, because there was nothing in their spiritual 
nature of which they needed to feel ashamed in the pres- 
ence of God. Their nakedness without shame was the 
appropriate and expressive image and symbol of their 

142 i 


FIG-LEAVES 143 


childlike innocence. For in early childhood this peculiar 
sentiment does not manifest itself, and in all art innocence 
is represented by a nude figure. But, now, as the first 
consequence of their having eaten of the forbidden tree, 
from which they had anticipated that their eyes would be 
opened to discern between good and evil by their own 
wisdom, their eyes were opened, indeed, but in a very 
different sense, so that they immediately became aware of 
the shame of their nakedness. Here, then, we have this 
peculiar shame in man accounted for by referring it to sin 
as its cause: and, perhaps, in the whole range of literature, 
ancient and modern, sacred and profane, there is no other 
attempt, which is worthy of attention, to explain the 
origin of this mysterious sentiment, although it is certainly 
one of the most striking and wonderful of all the phe- 
nomena of human life. 

This explanation, however, requires that we should take 
into account the two-fold nature of man, as composed of 
soul and body, in virtue of which our inward and spirit- 
ual experiences naturally seek for themselves some outward 
expression through the bodily organism. Pent up feelings 
seem to stifle us. In fact, human language itself must be 
conceived of as originating from this vital union between 
soul and body, in consequence of which whatever lives 
and moves in our spiritual nature demands and must find 
some outward manifestation through the physical organism. 
And so strong is this inborn tendency that it is not satis- 
‘fied with mere words; it resorts also to the language of 
symbols. Our inward emotions, acting upon our bodies, 
instinctively and often involuntarily produce their corres- 
ponding and appropriate signs whereby they express 
themselves. Such symbolical and significant signs are the 
smnile, the frown, the outcry, laughter and tears. 

Now, when these first sinners experienced no such effects 
as they had been led to anticipate from their eating of the 
forbidden tree, but perceived, on the contrary, that they 


144 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


had been deceived and betrayed to commit an act of 
stupendous folly and sin, whereby they had brought them- 
selves under the displeasure and wrath of God, they be- 
came conscious of inward and spiritual shame—the shame 
of sin and guilt. This, of course, was a new and strange 
feeling. Consequently, and because it was in the strongest 
contrast with the peace and joy of their former innocence, 
their consciences not having been seared by repeated trans- 
gressions, it must have been fraught with heart-piercing 
anguish beyond all that we can conceive. How unspeak- 
ably awful must have been the first experience of remorse 
in the human soul! Hence it could not fail to seek and 
find some new and appropriate sign or symbolical mani- 
festation. Pent up in their bosoms, it will stifle them. 
And how shall it manifest itself? It will surely find its 
own appropriate and significant expression, just as pleasure 
produces its smile, displeasure its frown, amusement its 
laughter, and sorrow its tears. Hence, as their pure bodies 
have hitherto been the most expressive symbol of their 
inward purity, so, now that their souls are defiled and 
polluted, the sight of their utter nakedness, vividly re- 
minding them of their lost innocence and bliss, cannot 
fail to add the most distressing poignancy to their shame 
for their sin and folly. In addition to this, as they have 
been betrayed into sin by following the wisdom of their 
earthly and sensual nature, of which nature their naked 
material bodies are the most tangible and visible represen- 
tation, they can no longer bear the sight of them, but 
must try, in some poor way, to cover them from their own, 
and from the eyes of God. Thus we may understand how 
it was that the inward and spiritual shame of sin, when it 
arose in the hearts of our first parents as anew and strange 
feeling, went forth, so to speak, and symbolized itself in 
the shame of their naked bodies, and in their attempt to 
cover them. | 

But why, we must ask, did this peculiar shame attach 


FIG-LEAVES chats 


itself most strongly to those parts of the body which an 
apron or girdle would cover? This will not seem strange 
if we consider that in those parts, above all others, the life, 
strength and lawlessness of the earthly and sensual nature, 
by which man was betrayed into sin, aresummed up and 
concentrated. Hence they are the chosen Scriptural type 
of this nature, as appears from the fact, among many 
others, that the sins of drunkenness, gluttony, and other 
excesses of the sensual affections, are not prohibited by 
name in the decalogue, but under this type, in the com- 
mandment: “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” This 
point will be further illustrated in the sequel. For this 
reason it was, no doubt, that the new and strong sentiment 
of spiritual shame for sin, when it sought an outward ex- 
pression, and reflected itself in the shame of the naked 
body, naturally and spontaneously attached itself most 
strongly, though by no means exclusively, to those parts of 
the body which an apron or girdle would cover. 

This explanation of the shame of the naked body in 
man is confirmed by the fact, that it does not appear in 
mere animals, nor in young children, and only in a feeble 
form among savages. For animals have only one nature, 
and this is in harmony with itself; they have no moral 
nature which can suffer degradation by subjection to their 
earthly and sensual life ; hence they are incapable of sin 
and shame. In young children, the moral nature is yet 
undeveloped. The voice of God has not yet made itself 
heard in their consciences distinguishing between right and 
wrong, good and evil. ‘The commandment has not yet 
come to them, and they have not yet sinned after the sim- 
ilitude of Adam’s transgression.” Hence they have no 
shame of sin, nor of their naked bodies, which are the ap- 
propriate and beautiful symbol of their as yet paradisiac 
simplicity and innocence. But as soon as the moral law 
begins to enunciate itself in their consciences, and their 
sin against it becomes clearly defined and conscious, the 


146 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


shame of their naked bodies begins to manifest itself, as in 
the first sinners. With respect to savages, this senti- 
ment is feeble and obscure because their moral nature is 
feebly developed, and they hear only a confused echo of . 
the moral law in their consciences. But as soon as this 
law is made known to them, and they come to recognize 
themselves as sinners, their shame is felt, and they begin 
to cover themselves. 

In fine, this explanation is eee established by 
the fact, that, in the subsequent Scriptures, as has been in- 
timated, this peculiar shame is constantly assumed as the 
type and symbol of the spiritual shame of sin. Thus in 
the following and a thousand similar expressions: “ Thy 
nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall be 
seen...1 will discover thy skirts upon thy face, that 
thy shame may appear.” In fact, shame is the proper 
and Scriptural word to express the feeling of conscious 
guilt. It is altogether preferable to the heathen word re- 
morse, because it implies the presence of Him against 
whom sin is committed, and before whom. the conscious 
sinner feels ashamed, whilst remorse, which signifies the 
biting-back of sin into the soul, 7. e., the sting which it in- 
flicts, leaves Him out of view. Hence the form in which 
the prophet makes confession of his own and the sins of 
his people: “I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face 
to thee my God, for our iniquities are increased over our 
heads, and our trespass has grown up unto the heavens.” 

Modesty, then, as we are here instructed, isa Divine 
symbol of sacramental significance, to nourish the shame of 
sin from which it proceeds in human souls. It is strong- 
est in woman, perhaps, because she was first in the trans- 
gression, and for other far stronger reasons which will be 
referred to when we come to consider the influence of her 
peculiar chastisement, under which she has become more 
pure in heart than is man. Its symbolical character is 
universally recognized, as when we say of any one who has 


FIG-LEAVES 147 


cast off all moral restraint, that he is a shameless person. 
For in those who are thus ‘ given over to their own heart’s 
lusts, to work all uncleanness with greediness,’ so that they 
no longer feel the shame of sin, the shame of the naked 
body tends to perish with it. Not infrequently they are 
restrained from the exposure of their persons in public, 
and from open gratification of their brutal lusts, chiefly by 
their former habits, or by the customs of society, or by the 
penalties of human laws; and sometimes all these are in- 
effectual. It is against such that God himself brings the 
awful accusation : “Thou hast a whore’s forehead, and _re- 
fusest to be ashamed.” Whenever, therefore, a willingness 
to uncover the body in public manifests itself among those 
who have the knowledge of the moral law, especially in 
women, it is an infallible sign of great corruption of mor- 
als—the symbol perishing together with the sacred senti- 
ment which it is ordained to represent, quicken and nourish 
in human souls. 

In further explanation of this complex symbol, it may 
be observed, that it is not expressly stated whether God 
manifested himself to these first sinners in a visible form, 
nor whether they heard His voice with their outward ears, 
or only with the ears of their souls. In any case, they re- 
cognized His presence, and it was truly His voice which 
reached their consciences, and awakened their shame and 
fear. The expression, “in the cool of the day,” if that 
rendering be retained, may be intended to symbolize, that 
it was in a state of cool reflection, after the excitement and 
disturbance caused by their temptation and sin had sub- 
sided, they heard His voice in the garden. Literally ren- 
dered, however, it was “in the wind of the day ” that this 
occurred. Now the wind is the Scriptural symbol of the 
Spirit of God, with special reference to His invisible and 
inscrutable operations in the human goul, as in the words 
of our Lord to Nicodemus: “ The wind bloweth where it 
listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not 


148 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth ; so is every one 
that is born of the Spirit.” In fact, the word here is the 
same which is properly rendered “ Spirit,” where it is said: 
“The Spirit of God moved [brooded] upon the face of the 
waters.” Hence it may be that Adam heard the voice of 
the Holy Spirit in his conscience, calling him to account 
and judging him for his sin, in so sensible a manner that 
he seemed to hear it also in the rustling of the wind among 
the branches of the trees, thus taking the symbol for the 
thing symbolized. If this were so, it would account for 
the mention of the wind in this connection, and the ex- 
pression might be compared with Milton’s weird and 
thrilling lines—such, at least, to every one who has had 
any experience of that which they describe : 


Those airy tongues that syllable men’s names 
On shores and desert sands and wildernesses. 


However that may be, the whole transaction is evidently 
one of symbolical and spiritual significance. For here we 
behold the first human sinners, in their first experience of 
the shame of sin and conscious nakedness, trying in vain 
to cover themselves with leaves strung together, and to 
hide themselves from the Divine presence among the trees 
of the garden: we hear the voice of God penetrating into 
the depth of their hiding place, and calling to them in 
words which thrill their hearts with the anguish of guilt 
and terror, “ Man, where art thou ?”—making inquisition 
for their sin, discovering the shame of it under the flimsy 
covering of excuses and subterfuges with which they fain 
would veil and cloak it,and pronouncing judgment upon 
their trembling souls: in all which, we have what has 
always been recognized as a most vivid picture from the 
pencil of God of sinful and fallen man. 

For when the fleeting pleasure of sin has passed away, 
and the tumult which it produces in the sensitive nature 
and in the soul has subsided, the sinner who has not yet 


FIG-LEAVES 149 


become utterly hardened and abandoned feels degraded 
and ashamed. He is now conscious that there is something 
in him which cannot stand the scrutiny of the all-seeing 
eye. He hears also the voice of God in his conscience, judg- 
ing, condemning him, and filling his soul with guilty ter- 
rors. Now he fain would hide himself from the awful 
presence. He tries to drown the accusing voice in the din 
of business, or the songs of pleasure—in the turmoil and 
clamor of the earthly and worldly life. But the voice 
follows him into his most secret hiding places, compels him 
to answer, and discovers his sin and shame. In vain he 
strives to hide it with excuses and palliations. He is con- 
scious that the all-seeing eye pierces through all those at- 
tempts at self-justification, and he is compelled to stand 
naked, guilty and trembling in the presence of his Judge. 
Ah, how changed his condition from what it was in the 
innocence of childhood, when, unconscious of voluntary 
transgression, he knew neither shame nor fear ! 

The attempt of the first man to excuse himself by lay- 
ing the blame upon his wife reveals the selfishness which 
his sin had introduced and established in his nature. 
For although he had been seduced by what bore the sem- 
blance of a generous sentiment towards her, since he 
preferred to share her fate, whatever it might be, even to 
retaining the favor of God for himself without her, yet, 
because he chose this in violation of the Divine command, 
the only criterion of what is truly generous and good, it 
has landed him in the heart of the most odious and loath- 
some selfishness and meanness. ‘Therefore, let the blame 
of his sin rest upon her rather than upon himself: “She 
gave me of the tree, and I did eat.” Poor girdle of fig- 
leaves—it cannot cover his shame ! 

The truth here symbolized is one of universal applica- 
tion. It is true that this selfishness of Adam is often 
sneered at by those who foolishly think that they would 
have felt and acted very differentiy. But such persons do 


150 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


not appreciate the symbolical significance of this whole 
transaction, nor perceive that here, as elsewhere, the first 
man speaks and acts as representing all his posterity—in 
the character of sinful man. For, universally, that which 
may appear to man’s wisdom as prompted by generous 
sentiments, even as an act of heroic self-sacrifice, if it be 
chosen in violation of the commands of God, will surely 
generate selfishness and meanness in the soul : or, rather, 
that essential selfishness towards God which is contained 
in every transgression of his holy and just and good law 
will surely manifest itself in the transgressor as selfishness 
towards his neighbor. This is the secret of that burning 
enmity which so often springs up between those who 
have been led into sin by the stress and passion of un- 
lawful love, of which we have such a shocking example 
in Amon’s hatred of his sister Tamar, and which other- 
wise seems to be so inexplicable. For when the voice 
of God in the conscience makes itself heard in judgment 
upon the sin, then all those sentiments which before seemed 
so full of tenderness and sweetness are turned into gall 
and wormwood, and the essential selfishness which was 
their heart and substance from the first is made to appear. 
The reason is, that man is necessarily incompetent to dis- 
cern between good and evil by his own wisdom, and re- 
quires to have the distinction marked for him by the wis- 
dom and authority of God. 

Also, as here represented so universally, the sinner 
strives in vain to excuse himself by reasonings and devices 
of the carnal mind, in all which he lays the blame of his 
sins at last upon God. This is plainly the meaning of 
Adam’s words: “The woman whom thou gavest to be 
with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.” For 
conscious guilt is something too painful to bear. Hence, 
in order to silence the voice of the conscience within him, 
the sinner taxes his ingenuity to lay it upon some one 
else, or upon the circumstances in which he is placed— 


FIG-LEAVES 151 


upon his forefathers, the inherited corruption of his nature, 
the strength of his temptations, the necessities of business, 
and a thousand other things. But none of these excuses 
can possibly have the least validity or force; they are all 
devices of the carnal mind, and “refuges of lies which the 
overflowing scourge of God’s judgment must sweep away.” 
The whole blame of sin must lie upon the sinner himself, 
otherwise it would not be sin. This is further evident 
from the fact, that all the temptations to sin which ever 
can be brought to bear upon man are necessarily present 
to the mind of God when He gives him His commands ; 
consequently, for everything which man can devise or 
think of to urge in self-justification or mitigation of his 
offences, God will always have an answer to this effect: I 
knew you would meet that temptation, and would have 
that reason for disobedience, when I gave you the com- 
mand, and if I had seen that it was a good reason, T would 
not have given you the command. Moreover, if such ex- 
cuses were valid as reasons for disobedience, they would 
convict God of giving unreasonable commands, and thus 
lay the blame of sin upon Him. For God, by his provi- 
dence, is the author of all the circumstances in which man 
is, or ever can be placed, except those for which man him- 
self is responsible. All this we have brought out with the 
utmost clearness in the parable which represents the man 
with one talent as excusing himself to his Lord in the fol- 
lowing words: “I knew thee, that thou art a hard man, 
reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where 
thou hast not strewed, and I was afraid, and went and hid 
thy talent in the earth.” Hence the just severity with 
which his Lord rebuked and punished him: “ Out of 
thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant. 
Thou knewest that I was an austere man, taking up that 
I laid not down, and reaping that I did not sow! Where- 
fore, then, gavest thou not my money into the bank, that 
at my coming I might have required mine own with 


152 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


usury ?... Take, therefore, the talent from him... And 
cast ye the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness: 
there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” 

This vivid symbol, with all its significance, is repeated 
in the woman’s attempt to lay the blame of her sin upon 
the tempter: “ The serpent beguiled me [by causing me to 
forget] and I did eat;” in which, also, an additional 
excuse is presented, namely, that she was betrayed by the 
tempter into forgetfulness of something pertaining to the 
Divine command. ‘The repetition has the effect of solemn 
emphasis upon the import of the preceding symbol; 
besides which, the woman’s forgetfulness is hardly of less 
significance. Jor when she saw that the forbidden tree 
was pleasant to the eye and good for food and desirable 
to make her wise, in what sense we have seen—whilst her 
heart was thus occupied with the desires of her earthly 
nature—it seems that the Divine prohibition, with the 
penalty of disobedience, ceased to stand before her mind, 
receded into the background, was no longer an object of 
her thoughts, still less of her faith. But this excuse was 
no more valid than others; for whatever it was that she 
forgot, that was the thing which she ought to have remem- 
bered. In all this, however, we are not to understand 
that her experience was different from that of her hus- 
band, but rather that it stands here recorded as a univer- 
sal symbol; for thus it is universally with man. When 
the desires of the earthly nature and the reasonings of the 
carnal mind dominate over his spiritual nature—when the 
anticipated pleasures of sin, with all their attractions and 
charms, loom up before his mind—then the Divine law 
recedes into the background ; its penalties grow dim and 
uncertain; in comparison with the immediateness of the 
anticipated pleasure, they seem very far off, and perhaps 
will never come at all. ‘Thus the tempted soul is made to 
forget what above all things it ought to remember. Thus 
it is deceived and betrayed. 


FIG-LEAVES 153 


And, now, the voice of God has followed the first human 
sinners into their secret hiding-place, discovered and made 
them conscious of their nakedness, 7. ¢., of the inexcus- 
ableness of their sin, and brought them to submit them- 
selves to His judgment: after which, we shall behold Him, 
in the mystery of His fatherly tenderness, by His own 
hand, and with new symbolical meaning, clothing their 
nakedness with a better covering than fig-leaves. In like 
manner, the judgment of God must finally reach the souls 
of all men who have “ sinned after the similitude of Adam’s 
transgression,” and bring them to confession and repent- 
ance, before they can be clothed in the righteousness of 
the sacrificial Victim upon whom He has laid the sins of 
the world. For whilst they continue to cloak their sins, 
i. e., to justify or excuse themselves by any devices which 
they can possibly think of, and thus to evade the convic- 
tion that they alone are to blame for all their transgres- 
sions, this judgment of God is yet a “ judgment to come.” 
But when the Divine voice in their consciences compels 
them to recognize their nakedness as still uncovered, all 
their devices of self-justification as no better than a flimsy 
girdle of fig-leaves, and all their attempts to cover their 
nakedness as adding to the inexcusableness of their sin ; 
when, thus emptied of all self-righteousness and self-trust, 
they take to themselves all the blame of the sin which 
God charges upon them, and submit themselves to His 
judgment as most just and righteous altogether ; then He 
always deals with them in fatherly tenderness and saving 
mercy. He judges the evil that is in them in order 
thereby to destroy it out of them. He clothes them in the 
righteousness of the sacrificial Victim whom He has pro- 
vided to bear the sins of mankind—a better covering, in- 
deed, for their shame than their own miserable attempts 
at excuses and self-justification. In fine, whatever chas- 
tisement, in the forms of labor and sorrow and death to 
their earthly nature, He ie see fit to lay upon them, 

7 


* 


154 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


will be only such as are indispensable, in their sinful 
state, to the purification of their souls and to their prep- 
aration for heaven. 


IX 
THE JUDGMENT UPON WOMAN 


Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow 
and thy conception [the sorrow of thy conception] in sorrow shalt 
thou bring forth children: and thy desire shall be to thy husband, 
and he shall rule over thee. 


THE punishment of the tempter was truly and properly 
a malediction or curse, but these judgments pronounced 
upon the man and the woman were fatherly chastisements 
for their purification and salvation from sin. This dis- 
tinction is of great importance on many grounds, and 
especially because it enables us to receive what is now so 
much insisted on concerning the uses and dignity of labor 
in perfect consistency with this account. For to man, 
being now a sinner, these chastisements are truly blessings 
in disguise, being indispensable to the reduction of his 
earthly and sensual nature to its original subjection. Ac- 
cordingly, it is evident that, in the degree in which his 
deliverance from sin becomes realized, as Christian civiliza- 
tion makes progress, this tends to emancipate him from 
bondage to labor by subjecting the forces of nature to his 
control, so that they are made to do his work. Also, as 
the knowledge of his physical constitution increases, as 
medical science advances, as remedies come to be better 
known and more skilfully applied, as anzsthetics come 
into more common use, the pains and sicknesses which have 
their origin in sin, even those of childbirth, are sensibly 
mitigated, and may. finally be done away. For we know 
not yet how far this tendency may ultimately reach, nor 
what fulness of meaning future generations may find in 

155 


156 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


the prophetic word: “There shall be no more death.... 
The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” 

It should be further observed here that this judgment 
upon woman is additional to all that she suffers under the 
chastisement inflicted upon man, and is, for the most part, 
peculiar to her. This, namely, that the heaviest punish- 
ment should be laid upon her, may seem strange to us, with 
our knowledge of the moral characters of the two sexes. 
Nor is it in any wise explained by the fact, that she was 
first in the transgression ; for this judgment was not pro- 
nounced upon the first woman alone, but it includes all her 
female posterity, of whom in no sense can it be said that 
they go before or lead men into sin. The true solution of 
the difficulty lies in the symbolical character of the trans- 
action, and in that these peculiar chastisements were indis- 
pensable, as we shall see, to the purification of the mothers 
of mankind, to whom, in fact, they have proved a source 
of the very greatest spiritual blessings. 

With respect, now, to this subjection of the woman, it 
certainly was not altogether a consequence of sin, but 
grew, in part at least, out of her natural relation to man. 
For she was created inferior to him in stature, physical 
strength, and other elements of her earthly nature, includ- 
ing that of the prudential wisdom which stood at its head. 
Consequently their marriage union with each other must 
have implied, even in their estate of innocence, some 
degree of dependence upon him for direction and guid- 
ance and other matters pertaining to their earthly life and 
welfare. But this could not have been in any wise un- 
pleasant or irksome to her, because he would require noth- 
ing but what was reasonable and right, and what would 
be her delight and happiness to render him. In fact, we 
must conceive of them both as being perfectly unselfish, 
and as preferring, from motives of love, each other’s hap- 
piness to their own. Moreover, this relation of the woman 
to her husband, even whilst they were innocent, was, as it 


THE JUDGMENT UPON WOMAN 157 


still remains, a holy symbol, set up in the bosom of their 
daily life, to represent and cherish the consciousness of the 
union of their spiritual nature with God, and their subjec- 
tion to Him as the husband of their souls. Hence it is 
written: “The husband is the head of the wife, even 
as Christ is the head of the Church... Therefore, as the 
Church is subject unto Christ, so let wives be to their own 
husbands.” To the Church also it is said: ‘ Thy Maker is 
thy husband ;” and she is represented as “ the Bride, the 
Lamb’s wife.” These spiritual relations were represented 
by the marriage of Adam and Eve in paradise more 
vividly than they have ever been since. 

For the harmony of the marriage union suffered an 
earthquake-shock from the entrance of sin. ‘The first 
woman, in the very act of her transgression, in that she 
took no counsel with her husband in a matter of such tran- 
scendent importance, asserted independence of him, and 
trampled upon the holy symbol of her dependence upon 
God. Now, therefore, that nature in her by whose proud 
exaltation to act independently, and to rule her spiritual 
nature, she has sinned, is violently thrust back, and held in 
subjection to her husband, in order that thereby it may be 
chastised and trained to submission and obedience to the 
authority of God. Nor did it require any efficient interpo- 
sition on the part of God to produce this change, for it re- 
sulted necessarily from the new circumstances into which the 
woman had brought herself by her sin. This is indicated 
by the words : “ ‘Thy desire shall be to thy husband ;” the 
meaning of which is plain from the similar expression 
which is applied to Abel, concerning whom it is said to 
Cain: “‘ His desire shall be to thee, and thou shalt rule 
over him:” that is to say, Abel should be sensible of his in- 
feriority to his brother in age, strength and dignity, should 
feel his dependence upon him as the inheritor of the birth- 
right, and should look to him for counsel, guidance and 
protection, so that Cain would naturally have the ascend- 


158 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


ency and rule over him. In like manner, the woman now, 
by stress of the new circumstances into which sin had 
brought her, would be forced to recognize her dependence 
upon her husband, as necessary to her support, and even to 
the preservation of her life. Henceforth with desire must 
she look to him for support, protection and guidance, and 
submit to his rule over her, even though it should be ca- 
pricious, tyrannical and cruel. In fact, it could hardly be 
otherwise. For having seduced him into sin, whereby he 
had cast off the only adequate guidance of the wisdom of 
God, and had set up in its place as the law of his life the 
wisdom of his earthly and sensual nature, she had thereby 
destroyed all security for herself that he would require of 
her only what was reasonable and good and kind, and made 
it certain that he would often be unreasonable and exacting, 
passionate and jealous. Both of them, indeed, had now 
become selfish and wayward creatures, and would naturally 
prefer their own to each other’s comfort and happiness. 
The unity of that nature in which they were one by mar- 
riage, from the perfection of which their mutual affections 
and desires had hitherto flowed so calmly and sweetly to- 
gether, was now shattered. Conflicting judgments, opinions 
and desires would inevitably arise. Hence, for the possi- 
bility of their living together, one of them must be con- 
stituted the final arbiter of all such differences. But the 
woman could not stand in this relation to the man by rea- 
son of her inferiority in physical strength and other things 
which might be necessary to render her decisions effectual. 
Consequently, the man must be the head of the woman ; 
and however capricious and tyrannical he might be, she 
could not be allowed to separate herself from him, except 
for one offence ; and even this she would often find it better 
for herself and her children to pass over than to resent. 
Now, also, they were about to be driven forth from their 
blissful abode, where their food had stood ready provided 
to their hands, into a world of thorns and thistles, where 


THE JUDGMENT UPON WOMAN 159 


the earth would not yield them even a scanty subsistence, 
until it should be subdued by strenuous and_ persistent 
labor, to which the physical conditions of the woman were 
ill-adapted and altogether inadequate. Now, therefore, she 
would be compelled to recognize and feel her need of her 
husband’s superior strength, courage and hardihood to labor 
for her support, to guide her steps through the pathless 
wilderness, and to defend her from violence in the times of 
unbridled lust, frequent murders, and universal lawlessness 
which were at hand. Indeed, if the woman had been left 
without special protection when “the whole earth was 
filled with violence,” she might have perished, and with her 
the race of which she was to be the mother. 

Thus we see that, by the mere fact of the entrance of sin, 
the relation which had previously subsisted between the 
sexes, though not subverted, was necessarily and essen- 
tially modified. That blissful dependence of the wife - 
upon her husband, which was the perfect symbol of the 
dependence of their souls in faith and love upon God, 
became, in so far as their union was vitiated by sin, sub- 
jection ; and this represented the new relation to God into 
which sin had brought them, and in which love alone 
would not be adequate, but He must maintain His authority 
over them for their good by his superior power. This 
subjection of the woman to her husband, however, pertains 
only to her earthly and mortal nature, by which she is 
united to him in marriage. In her spiritual nature, she is 
essentially free, and responsible to God alone, who is the 
only true and lawful husband of her soul: and if her 
human husband command her to do what God has for- 
bidden, it is her duty to disobey, whatever be the conse- 
quences, for “we ought to obey God rather than men.” 
God alone is the Lord of the conscience in woman as in 
man. 

This Divine symbol is now a most blessed means of 
grace to married people, but especially to the wife, because 


160 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE © 


it nourishes her sentiment of dependence upon and sub- 
jection to God. Indeed, it can hardly be doubted but 
that to its influence the superior susceptibility to religious 
impressions of woman, as such, is in great part to be 
ascribed. or as the essence of sin is rebellion against 
God, so the very heart and substance of true piety is sub- 
mission—the submission of the earthly to the spiritual 
nature, of the spiritual nature to the conscience, and of 
the conscience to the word and wisdom of God—the sub- 
mission of conscious dependence, faith and love—passiyely, 
a.¢., to all the dispensations of Divine providence, and 
actively, in obedience to all God’s commands and ordi- 
nances. ‘I’o this subjection woman is trained from genera- 
tion to generation by the relation in which the wife stands 
to her husband. To her it is, in some sort, what the child’s 
subjection to his parents is to him—what the law of Moses 
was to the sincere Israelite—her schoolmaster to lead 
her to Christ.’ Hence, in general, she has become more 
submissive and docile to the Lord’s instructions than is 
man. for there is no one in this world to whom he is 
put in subjection, and, consequently, the earthly nature in 
him has unfolded itself with a ranker luxuriance than in 
her. His natural mind has thus become so puffed up 
with conceit of knowledge and power in earthly and _per- 
ishable things that he finds great difficulty in stooping 
and humbling himself to the submission of faith. He 
can hardly recognize it as a fool in spiritual things, that he 
may become truly wise by submitting it to the authority 
of the wisdom of God. Thus “the carnal mind” has at- 
tained to a more formidable development in man than in 
woman—to such arrogance, indeed, that often he under- 
takes to account for her greater susceptibility to piety by 
her intellectual inferiority. But she is inferior only in 
that which is “of the earth, earthy,” and in that wisdom 
which is conversant only with perishable things; whilst in 


THE JUDGMENT UPON WOMAN 161 


meekness, obedience, self-sacrifice, and that ‘charity which 
never faileth,’ she is often and greatly his superior. 

Thus we are enabled to appreciate the Scriptural form 
of the marriage vow, in which the woman promises to 
“love, honor and obey her husband.” Yor thus only can 
this hallowed union fulfil the spiritual purpose for which 
it was ordained of God, namely, that it might serve asa 
holy, even a sacramental symbol of the mystical union be- 
tween the Lord and His church, which is His Bride. Nor 
is it inconsistent with, but rather a consequence of this, 
that, in the degree in which married life becomes purified 
from sin and its consequences, it tends to revert to what 
it was in paradise before the fall; that is to say, the 
authority of the husband ceases to be exercised otherwise 
than in forms which can hardly be recognized, and the 
obedience of the wife becomes simply that of love—to her 
a perennial well-spring of happiness. for wherever the 
anthority of the husband makes itself irksomely felt, and 
the wife yields an unwilling obedience, there is an imper- 
fectly sanctified marriage, there sin and its inevitable con- 
sequences still abound. 

With respect to the other part of this judgment upon 
woman, it plainly implies that if she had never sinned, 
though, doubtless, she would have borne children, she 
would have been exempt from the pains and sorrows of 
parturition. These are here represented as originating in 
and accounted for by sin, precisely as the shame of the 
naked body. Nor is there anything incredible in this 
when we consider how very light these sorrows are among 
savages, to whom the moral law is almost unknown, and 
in whom ‘sin, after the similitude of Adam’s transgres- 
sion, is not pronounced nor clearly defined. For it is 
only among civilized peoples, where, through luxury and 
other influences, the physical constitution of woman has 
become vitiated and enervated, and where the spiritual is 
consciously subjected to the appetites and desires of the 


162 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


earthly and sensual nature, that this memorial of her sin 
takes on its most terrible form: at the same time, it is 
sensibly mitigated, as we see, and may be ultimately done 
away, by the progress of medical science and art, which 
have their roots in Christianity, and by the universal 
prevalence of Christian morality. 

In the present state of our knowledge, indeed, we can- 
not trace the immediate causal connection between the sin 
of the woman and this chastisement, as we have done in 
the case of her subjection, and in that of the shame of the 
naked body. But the symbolical and teleological connec- 
tion is quite obvious. For she had sinned, as we have 
seen, by the exaltation of her earthly and carnal wisdom 
to control the wisdom of God in her spiritual nature, as 
the law of her discernment between good and evil. For 
the gratification of the lust of the eye, and of the lust of the 
flesh in her sense of taste, and of a carnal desire to be wise 
in a way that it was impossible she should be, she had re- 
belled against the authoritative guidance of God in his 
commands and prohibitions. Consequently there was now 
attached to her gratification of those desires in which the 
whole fulness and strength of her sensual nature were 
summed up and concentrated the most fearful anguish and 
sorrow which she could suffer and yet survive. ‘Thus she 
received in that nature by which she had been seduced and 
betrayed this most significant and awful memorial of the 
nature of her sin, that by it she might be chastened, and 
might go in penitence and humiliation all her days. And 
as the first sin contained the root and principle of all sin, 
so this chastisement passed over upon all her female pos- 
terity. 

Hence it is that throughout the Scriptures this judgment 
upon the woman is taken as the symbol of God’s judg- 
ments upon sin in general, in order to represent and to im- 
press upon the human mind and heart the truth, that, 
although the sinner may pursue for a time the gratification 


THE JUDGMENT UPON WOMAN 163 


of the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eye, and the 
pride of a life independent of God ; although the pleasures 
of sin may be keen and transporting, and their penal con- 
sequences may be long delayed; yet they are inevitable, 
and shall come upon him suddenly with such surprising 
and intolerable anguish that all these fleeting pleasures 
shall be no more remembered, or only with the agonies of 
remorse and shame. Thus in the following and many 
similar passages: “For when they shall say, Peace and 
safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as 
travail upon a woman with-child,, and they shall not 
escape... Pangs and sorrow shall take hold upon them ; 
they shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth.” 

Hence, also, under this powerful symbol is represented 
the judgment of God for the sins of mankind as taking 
effect upon the great sacrificial Victim, through whose 
travail sorrows the souls of His people are born into the 
new life, and this, together with His unutterable joy over 
their new birth. Thus in the words of the prophet: 
“When thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin, 
He shall see His seed... He shall see of the travail of 
His soul and shall be satisfied.” And, perhaps, there is 
nothing which so powerfully rebukes the cavilling of the 
carnal mind against the mystery of the atonement as this 
dread symbol, in which all who have ears may hear the 
voice of God to mankind, saying: Do you not see that 
every child of human parents is born through the pangs 
and sorrows of its mother? Can you think ‘that I have 
ordained this great mystery to no purpose, or that it can 
be without spiritual significance ? Let it put to silence the 
cavils of your wisdom, which is folly, against the birth of 
the children of my kingdom into their true life through 
the travail sorrows of Him who is both their spiritual 
father and mother. 

In fine, this chastisement upon woman could not fail to 
exert a powerful influence for the purification of her heart 


164 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


and life. Through all generations of human life upon the 
earth, it has stood before her mind in every temptation to 
unchastity, threatening her with its awful premonitions and 
terrors. ‘The impression which it makes upon: mothers is 
imparted to their daughters, who have never experienced 
it, through the silent but all-powerful intercommunion of 
life. Hence, in the normal moral condition of the two 
sexes, where man abandons himself, woman shrinks and 
trembles before the terrible future. T hus, in general, she 
has become more pure of heart than is man, The world- 
ling, or debauchee, who knows her chiefly through those 
of her sex whom his lust has ruined, may sneer at this, 
but it is none the less true. Woe to the human race if it 
were not! For if man had met with no obstacle to his 
unbridled passions in the repelling and subduing purity 
of the female heart; if he had not been constantly bathed 
in the purifying waters which flow from the hearts of 
mothers, wives, sisters and daughters; it can hardly be 
doubted but that the human race itself would long ago 
have perished from irredeemable corruption. 

Under the purifying influence of this two-fold chastise- 
ment—the sorrows of childbirth and subjection to her hus- 
band—woman has become more susceptible to the saying 
power of the gospel than is man. He, indeed, may be 
more capable of discursive thinking. To him religion 
itself is often but a thought. He is ever prone to mistake 
knowledge for life. He would much rather understand 
than submit his mind to the mysteries of redemption and 
salvation. A hard saying to him is that of the Lord: 
“If ye will do the will of my Father, then shall ye know 
of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak 
of myself.” It is a stumbling-block to him, that the 
obedience of faith must always precede sight or knowledge 
[7ydarc] 7. e. knowledge in the clearness and demonstra- 
tion of ideas. But with woman it is all different. She 
more easily submits her mind and heart to the authority of 


— 


_—. 


THE JUDGMENT UPON WOMAN 165 


the Lord. To her the gospel is a life rather than a 
thought: and, by the intercommunion of life, as once she 
led her husband into rebellion and sin, so now she leads 
him back to the submission and obedience of faith, inform- 
ing his life with her own meek and obedient spirit, shed- 
ding upon his heart a better light than that of knowledge 
—the light of faith and love—and breathing into his soul 
something of the superior purity which she derives from 
her peculiar chastisement. Hence it is the Seed of the 
woman, as distinguished from the man, who crushes the 
serpent’s head; and it was a woman who first recognized 
the Seed when He came into the world. Women were His 
most devoted followers and ministers whilst He taber- 
nacled in the flesh. Women were the last at His cross, and 
the first at His tomb ; and it was to a woman that He first 
appeared after His resurrection from the dead. 


x: 
THE JUDGMENT UPON MAN 


And unto Adam He said: Because thou hast hearkened unto 
the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which I com- 
manded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it, cursed is the ground 
for thy sake: in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life: 
thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and thou shalt 
eat the herb of the field: in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat 
bread, till thou return unto the ground, for out of it wast thou 
taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” 


Tue first man, in yielding to the solicitation of his wife, 
put himself under the law of his earthly nature, by which 
he was united to her and rendered susceptible to her influ- 
ence. His sin, therefore, was the same in substance with 
hers, and hence it is here judged in a similar manner, Yet 
there is a difference between these judgments, in that one 
of them is more comprehensive than the other—that of 
woman being, for the most part, confined to her, whilst 
that of man includes both man and woman. It is true, 
indeed, that the peculiar chastisement of woman necessarily 
and powerfully affects, through sympathy and otherwise, 
the life of man. For the marriage union is of such a close 
and vital nature that the two persons who are thus made 
one are unavoidably and largely partakers of each other’s 
good and evil. - But this judgment upon man rests also on 
woman in all its particulars, for labor, sorrow and death 
are the common lot of humanity. 

The curse which is here laid upon the ground for the 
sin of man does not necessarily imply any miraculous 
change passed upon it or its productions: our understand- 


ing of it should rather be conformed to the interpretation 
166 


THE JUDGMENT UPON MAN 167 


which has been given of the malediction upon the serpent. 
For the necessity of severe and painful labor would natu- 
rally come upon our first parents as the result of their 
expulsion from the garden of. Eden, where, with little ex- 
ertion on their part, the fruit of the trees supplied their 
simple wants. ‘his is evident from the fact, that such an 
abode was provided for their innocence, which implies that 
the surrounding country was not equally suitable, and 
allows us to conceive of it as a wilderness which would 
bring forth thorns and thistles, until it should be subdued 
and cultivated by human labor. Nor is there anything 
improbable in this, when we consider that the sin and fall 
of man were certainly foreseen by the all-wise Creator, 
and, consequently, a suitable abode and environment might 
well be prepared for him as a sinner beforehand, where 
strenuous labor would be necessary for his support. This 
view is further confirmed by the command which was 
given him before he had sinned to “replenish the earth 
and subdue it,” in which it is necessarily implied that the 
earth then required to be subjugated by human toil. Thus 
everything, as it came from the hand of the Creator, would 
be “very good” for that purpose for which it was created. 
However this may be, the natural world, in its present 
condition, is manifestly designed and adapted to be an 
abode and sphere for a sinful race. 

On the other hand, it is not incredible nor unscriptural 
that some change may have passed upon the earth and na- 
ture in consequence of the sin of man. Not unreasonably 
we may conceive of the life of man as being so connected, 
through his material nature, with that of animals and 
plants, and through them with the earth itself, that the 
whole natural world becomes, in some sort, a partaker of 
his good and evil. Evidently there is a certain corre- 
spondence and reciprocal influence between man and na- 
ture, and between the natural and spiritual worlds. Such 
correspondence is assumed in the parables of our Lord, 


16 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


and in almost all Scriptural images and symbols. Figu- 
rative language itself rests upon it. And this reciprocal 
influence we see in the differences which have been pro- 
duced by natural causes between the inhabitants of tropical, 
teraperate and polar countries, between the black and white 
man; as, also, in the modifications which take place in 
animals and plants under domestication, and in all the 
manifold results of human agency upon nature. It has 
been observed, even by a skeptical historian, concerning 
the repulse of the Gauls from the siege of the temple of 
Apollo at Delphi by astonishing manifestations in nature : 
“This is very possible; for... it has happened more than 
once that such extraordinary phenomena occurred in such 
decisive moments.” * Hence, when the people of the old 
world were morally ripe for the judgment of God, a deluge 
of water was already prepared and in waiting to execute it. 
When the time was fulfilled that the earth should not 
again be destroyed in a similar manner, there was a rain- 
bow which could be designated as the token and seal of 
God’s covenant with Noah and _ his posterity, that there 
should be no more flood. We see the same thing in the 
destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and in the plagues of 
Egypt. Also, in that great battle which Joshua fought 
against “the five kings of the Amorites...the Lord cast 
down great stones from heaven upon them... they were 
more which died with hailstones than they whom the chil- 
dren of Israel slew.” At the same time, there occurred 
phenomena in the heavens which were regarded by those 
who witnessed them as the standing still in mid-course of 
the sun and moon, in order that the victory might be com- 
pleted. In like manner, “the stars in their courses fought 
against Sisera.” And passing over a multitude of similar 
instances, we have it recorded that, at the crucifixion of 
the Lord, “the earth did quake, and the rocks were rent 
-.. and the sun was darkened, and the vail of the temple 


* B. G. Niebuhr’s Lectures on Ancient H story, Vol. III., pp. 274-5. 


THE JUDGMENT UPON MAN 169 


was rent in the midst,” together with many other portents 
and prodigies in the natural world. 

Moreover, it would seem from the prophecies on this 
subject that the renovation of the life of man through the 
faith of Christ will bring with it the deliverance of the 
physical world from its present disorders. We can hardly 
attach any other meaning to the following passage from St. 
Paul: “For the earnest expectation of the creature [nature, 
as distinguished from man] waiteth for the manifestation 
of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to 
vanity [evil] not willingly [not for its own sin] but by 
reason of Him who hath subjected the same in hope [by 
the will of God for His own wise and good purposes, with 
the promise of ultimate deliverance]. For the creature 
itself, also, shall be delivered from the bondage of corrup- 
tion into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” 
Expressions of similar import abound in the Scriptures : 
“The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard 
shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young 
lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead 
them... Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir- 
tree, and instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle 
tree... And I saw a new heaven and a new earth... 
And He that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make 
all things new.” Now, by whatever figures of speech these 
glowing predictions may be interpreted, they can hardly 
be made to signify less than that the renovation of human 
life will be accompanied by changes in the condition of the 
earth which will render it as suitable an abode for the saved 
as the garden of Eden was for man’s primal innocence. 
For this new life, when it shall be perfected, will require, 
as its appropriate sphere and environment, that “new earth” 
which the apostle John saw in his beatific visions. But 
how this “restitution of all things” will be brought about, 
we do not certainly know; perhaps, in part at least, by the 


8 


170 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


progress of science in subjugating the forces of nature and 
the properties of matter to human control. 

However these things may be, we see here that, as the 
garden of Eden has hitherto been the appropriate abode 
and significant symbol of man’s innocent and happy life, so 
now, under this judgment of God, he is placed in a very 
different sphere and environment, which symbolizes, in the 
most expressive manner, the spiritual evils which he has 
brought upon himself by his sin. The evil which has 
entered into him, the heart, head and intellectual eye of 
nature, in whom all its perfections are summed up, is now 
reflected in the whole creation around him, as in a thou- 
sand-faced mirror. He has broken up the harmony between 
himself and the world above him, and the world below 
him is no longer in harmony with him. He has come 
under bondage to corruption, and all things created for him 
are brought under similar bondage. Selfishness towards ° 
God has become the law of his life, and selfishness towards 
him has become the law of all things depending upon him. 
He has become a rebel and an enemy against God, and now 
the world that was put under him is in rebellion and 
enmity against him. Storms and tempests, earthquakes 
and volcanoes, noxious diseases, ferocious beasts and poi- 
sonous reptiles—the fatal forces of nature—will seek to de- 
throne him, as he has sought to dethrone God. He must. 
now re-assert and maintain his rule over them by his in- 
telligence and superior power, as God will maintain His 
dominion over him because “the weakness of God is 
stronger than man.” As he has refused to yield unto God 
the fruit of a willing and cordial obedience, so the earth 
will no longer render spontaneously her fruits to him. As 
he, left to his native tendencies, by his own wisdom and 
choice, will be fruitful in growths of sin and misery, so the 
untilled earth will produce thorns and thistles and poisonous 
plants. As the ground must now be broken up with 
the plough, tilled, fertilized, planted, and its growths tended 


THE JUDGMENT UPON MAN 171 


in the sweat of his brow, so must he also be broken up 
with affliction and sorrow, ploughed over and over again 
with Divine chastisements, the seed of spiritual life com- 
municated to him anew, and carefully tended by the 
heavenly “ Husbandman,” before he can be made to yield 
any good fruit. * 

The labor and sorrow of mankind, however, do not 
spring altogether from conditions of the earth, but chiefly 
from the natnre of sin, of which they are the neces- 
sary consequences. For in adopting his own creature 
wisdom as the law of his discernment and choice between 
good and evil, man put himself under a totally inadequate 
and blind guide, which could not fail to lead him astray, 
nor to disappoint him in his pursuit of happiness, and 


* Hence the word tribulation, which literally signifies the threshing 
of corn from its husk and chaff, has come to be applied to those afflictions 
and sorrows by which God purifies the soul fromits sins. And notonly the 
threshing and winnowing, but also the grinding of corn into flour for bread, 
have thus become a most expressive image of what man must undergo, in 
order that he should be brought again to serve the uses of his Maker. 
This striking symbol has been developed by one of our early Christian 
poets as follows: 


Till from the straw the flail the corn doth beat, 
Until the chaff be purged from the wheat, 
Yea, till the mill the grains in pieces tear, 
The richness of the flour will scarce appear. 
So till men’s persons great afflictions touch, 
If worth be found, their worth is not so much, 
Because, like wheat in straw, they have not yet 
That value which in threshing they may get. 
For till the bruising flail of God’s corrections 
Have threshed out of us our vain affections ; 
Till those corruptions which do misbecome us 
Are by thy Sacred Spirit winnowed from us; 
Until from us the straw of worldly treasures— 
Till all the dusty chaff of empty pleasures— 
Yea, till His flail upon us God doth lay, 
To thresh the husk of this our flesh away, 
And leave the soul uncovered—nay, yet more, 
Till God shall make our very spirit poor— 
We shall not up to highest worth aspire ; 
But then we shall, and such is my desire. 

See Trench On the Study of Words, p. 39. 


172 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


following which he must inevitably choose evil for himself 
instead of good. Hence whatever he attains fails to satisfy 
his desires, and he is ever tormented with a feeling of 
emptiness and want; the more he gains of that which 
seems good in his own eyes, the more he finds that it has 
no power to satisfy the cravings of his heart ; for the true 
and soul-filling good is not attainable otherwise than under 
the guidance of the wisdom of God. It is this ever un- 
satisfied craving, of which none are without painful expe- 
rience except those who have become altogether brutalized, 
which drives us forth on an ever fruitless quest, with labor 
and sorrow perpetually renewed. In youth, the world 
opens upon our senses with the most glowing promises, 
awakening the most confident expectations, that, with pru- 
dence and industry, we shall be able to work out for our- 
selves something which will make us happy. But when 
we succeed in obtaining or accomplishing any particular 
object, we find it altogether empty; and the experience of 
such disappointments, constantly repeated, pierces our hearts 
with the sharpest thorns. Yet we turn with renewed hope 
to other objects of pursuit, which lead us on to new toils of 
body and mind to experience new disappointments and 
sorrows. Still we are not convinced that the guide of life 
which we have chosen is inadequate and blind, and must 
forever lead us astray. Thus we are constantly attracted to 
new objects, to which “distance lends enchantment,” and 
which we clothe with all the illusions of sense and of the 
carnal mind. From the ashes of our ruined hopes new 
hopes arise with more potent delusion. What seems to our 
wisdom as if it could not fail to give us happiness, in 
ever-varying forms of earthly beauty and sensuous at- 
traction, leads us a long and weary chase from object to 
object, as the butterfly lures the child from flower to flower, 
until at last it rises out of his sight. Earthly pleasure is 
wooed with all the ardor of idolatry, and she does not with- 
draw her veil, nor reveal herself as the loathsome corpse 


THE JUDGMENT UPON MAN shee: 


she is, until the heart is married to her deformities and 
corruptions. 

Here is the main cause of man’s ceaseless toil and sor- 
row, the perennial root of the thorn and the thistle. The 
Divine judgment which condemns him ever to seek and 
never to find is the necessary consequence of the nature of 
his sin. And through this most sorrowful experience he 
has been passing from generation to generation and from 
age to age. Ever since the fall, he has been laboring to 
dig out of the earth, that is, to find in earthly things, 
something to satisfy the deep craving of his spiritual and 
immortal nature—something in the place of that which he 
lost when he cast off the guidance of the wisdom of God 
to follow his own wisdom in the choice which he has every 
moment to make between good and evil. Thus he still 
continues to repeat an experiment which has always failed, 
and which must forever fail. For all the fruits of his 
labor—all things that he works out by his own wisdom— 
his riches, sciences, kingdoms, empires, republics and 
civilizations—all fail—and still he is in want—still he is 
pierced with the thorn and the thistle, whose growth is 
perennially renewed—still his sorrows multiply, and his 
labor never comes to an end, 

If it had been otherwise, it is easy to see that salvation 
from sin would have been forever impossible. for if man 
had been allowed to remain in his garden of delight, or 
had been able, by his own wisdom, without labor or sor- 
row, io supply all his earthly wants, he would have lost 
all remembrance of the holy and blessed estate from which 
he has fallen, and would have come to regard his own 
wisdom as an all-sufficient guide of distinction between 
good and evil. With all his earthly appetites, desires and 
affections in their full strength, with the means of their 
ample gratification ever at hand, their most intense and 
protracted pleasures unattended by disease, pain, remorse, 
or sorrow in any form, with no fear of death before his 


174 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


eyes, he must, in no long time, have lost all feeling of 
spiritual need, and all consciousness of sin. His con- 
science already confused, darkened, dethroned, would have 
been silenced by the unrestrained gratification of the lusts 
of his sensual nature—would have ceased to give forth 
its oracles in his soul. He would have become utterly 
stupefied in his spiritual nature, and thus would have sunk 
down to a level with the brute. For even in our present 
circumstances, this effect of temporal prosperity is mourn- 
fully exemplified. When a worldly-minded man is very 
prosperous, and comparatively exempt from sickness, pain 
and sorrow, not infrequently he seems to lose all feeling 
of the want of anything better than this earth can give, 
and all conscience of sin. Such is the fool in our Lord’s 
parable, who is represented as saying to himself: “Soul, 
thou hast much goods laid up for many years: take thine 
ease, eat, drink and be merry.” And of such it is said: 
“Their heart is as fat as grease, their eyes stand out with 
fatness, and they have no bands in their death ”—also: 
“Tt is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle 
than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” 
Thus we see that this judgment of labor and sorrow 
came upon man by necessary consequence from the nature 
of his sin, and that it constitutes a Divine memorial and 
holy symbol to nourish the feeling of spiritual want in his 
soul, to work in his heart, by painful experience, the con- 
viction that his own wisdom is an inadequate and blind 
guide for his discernment between good and evil, and to 
lead him back to the submission of faith in the wisdom 
-of God. For it is only through this feeling of want that 
he retains the capacity for receiving Christ as “the bread 
of life,’ which alone can satisfy the hunger of his soul. 
If never before, yet when he is worn down with fruitless 
labor of body and mind, when racked with sickness and 
pain, heart-broken with affliction and sorrow, then he feels 
the need of spiritual consolation, of something which this 


THE JUDGMENT UPON MAN 175 


world cannot give, and turns away from all earthly things 
to the word and wisdom of God made flesh, to ‘that 
bread of life which came down from heaven, whereof if a 
man eat he shall hunger and thirst no more.’ 

With respect now to the judgment of death, with which 
that of labor and sorrow is here crowned, several obscure 
points require to be elucidated. For in this account of 
the origin of death in the human world, no light is thrown 
upon its prevalence in the lower realm of animals and 
plants, which, therefore, we are left to understand, as best 
we can, from the light of reason and nature. Now, that 
death reigned in the world of these lower organisms ages 
before man appeared on the earth, the present state of 
science does not permit us doubt. But this does not prove 
that this is no way dependent upon, or connected with, the 
sin of man. For the whole previous creation, including 
all that took place in those ages, was evidently a, prepara- 
tion for man in his present sinful and fallen state ; and, as 
we have seen, it was no less proper and necessary that, in 
this state, he should be surrounded by great disorders in 
the natural world than that an abode sequestered from all 
such disorders should be provided for his primal -inno- 
cence. All these, therefore, including death in organic 
nature, we may best understand as ordained of God in 
foresight of, and preparation for, the sin and fall of man. 
Nor is it probable that, if he had never sinned, his natural 
life would have been immortal upon the earth. For there 
seem to be reasons in his physical constitution why this 
should not be so, which cannot be ascribed to sin; and 
if the human race had not been depleted in some way, it 
would seem to be impossible that its numbers, ever multi- 
plying in a geometrical ratio, should have found even 
standing-room on the earth. Hence it is more reasonable 
to believe that, if men had never sinned, they would have 
been transplanted into some other state and sphere, yet 
without sickness or infirmity, perhaps by way of trans-. 


176 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


lation, of which Enoch and Elijah furnish us with illus- 
trious examples. 

Here, also, it should be carefully observed that the 
words, “ Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,” 
can have no reference to the spiritual nature of man, which 
was not made out of the dust of the ground, but which 
God breathed into him. In strictness of logic, they can 
apply only to his materia] nature, for only that which was 
taken from the ground can be said to return to it again. 
But the original declaration, “In the day that thou eatest 
thereof thou shalt surely die,” has a more comprehensive 
meaning, and certainly includes man’s spiritual nature, in 
which sense it was literally fulfilled. For his spiritual life, 
consisting in the knowledge and love of God, and nourished 
by the living bread of the word and wisdom of God, did 
perish the moment he lost his faith in God, and began 
to act from the dictates of his own wisdom and will in 
violation of God’s commands. And now this spiritual 
death is to be reflected and symbolized in that of his 
earthly nature, by whose proud exaltation to rule where 
its place was to obey he has sinned. The one was a 
natural, nay, a necessary consequence of the other. For 
the blind guide which he had chosen to follow would con- 
stantly lead him astray to choose evil instead of good— 
evil for the body as well as for the soul—and this would 
necessarily generate physical diseases, and work death in his 
earthly, as it had already done in his spiritual nature. In 
fact, at the point where these two natures were vitally united 
with eacl other in one and the same personality, death in 
the one would inevitably pass over and become death in 
the other. 

Thus all the diseases of the body became the scriptural 
symbols of the spiritual malady of sin. Hence the 
leprosy, being regarded as the worst and most incurable of 
all, was selected by Moses, and treated with a great variety 
of ritual observances, in order to interpret and enforce 
upon the minds of his people its spiritual significance. 


THE JUDGMENT UPON MAN Fit 


Hence also the prophets represent their spiritual and moral 
condition under such symbolical expressions as the follow- 
ing: “The whole head is sick and the whole heart fuint : 
from the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no 
soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and putrifying 
sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither 
mollified with ointment.” Thus also natural death be- 
came the great image and symbol of spiritual death, as in 
the following examples: “To be carnally minded is 
death... He that loveth not his brother abideth in 
death... He that heareth my word, and believeth on 
Him that sent me... is passed from death unto life.’ In 
these and ten thousand similar expressions, it is evident 
that what is signified by the word death is not the extine- 
tion of the natural life, but the effects and consequences of 
sin in the spiritual nature, of which the death of the body 
is taken as the outward form and sensible representation. 
Hence, when Christ came into the world, it was as the 
great Physician of souls; and He could do nothing more 
significant of His power to heal our spiritual maladies 
and to restore our spiritual life, than to heal, as He did, all 
manner of physical diseases and to raise the dead. It is 
only from this point of view that His miracles of physical 
healing can be rightly comprehended. 

Natural death, then, is the Divinely ordained symbol 
and image of spiritual death—of ‘death in trespasses and 
sins’—and as such it is infinitely expressive and _ terrible. 
For in the presence of a corpse, even the most thoughtless 
are struck with a certain mysterious awe, and all expres- 
sions of levity are felt to be utterly incongruous. How 
pale and rigid are these human features! These eyes, 
once so quick and bright and full of expression, have lost 
all speculation, and are without one gleam of intelligence. 
All the avenues of the senses are quite closed up. Com- 
plete insensibility—no volition, no thought, and cold, ah, 
how cold! No natural period can be assigned to this dream- 

* 


178 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


less sleep. No human power can recall this dead body 
to life, or restore light to these darkened eyes. And already 
there are signs of decomposition—the air is tainted. Ina 
little while, this form, so “fearfully and wonderfully 
made,” will pass through all the stages of dissolution and 
loathsome corruption, so that it must be separated from all 
communion with the living—buried out of their sight— 
that it may not generate in them also disease and death. 
Such is the dread symbol which God has ordained to rep- 
resent that spiritual death which ‘has come upon all men, 
for that all have sinned.” For thus man, in his natural or 
Adamic state, is dead to all spiritual things—dead to the 
evils of his spiritual condition—dead to the consciousness 
of his sin, guilt and danger—dead to the feeling of spirit- 
ual want—dead to the knowledge of God, to the love of 
Christ, and to all the motives and obligations of grace— 
dead to the truths, admonitions, warnings, promises and 
hopes of the gospel. If you speak to him of these things, 
they make no impression upon his mind—he knows not 
what you mean. Already he is undergoing spiritual de- 
composition which is loathsome to God, and pestilential to 
all other human souls. Left to himself, abandoned by the 
Spirit of God, he will soon become a mass of corruption, 
which must be put away out of sight—buried in the grave 
of the dead soul—separated from all communion with liy- 
ing souls—that he may not infect and poison their spiritual 
atmosphere. And from this state of death in sin, no man 
has power to raise himself to life. No merely human help 
can ever reach his case. Even the preaching of the gospel, 
apart from supernatural influences accompanying it, how- 
ever eloquent and touching, is utterly in vain, as it actually 
proves to multitudes of dead souls. 

This tremendous symbol of spiritual death has been set 
up in man’s earthly nature because it was by its proud 
elevation he sinned. Hence the light of this nature goes 
out in utter darkness, that is, because it has proved an 


THE JUDGMENT UPON MAN 179 


ignis fatuus to lead him astray from the path of life. 
Hence death comes upon him in spite of all his prudence 
and vigilance to guard against it, in order that he may be 
made to know and feel that the guide he has chosen in 
place of the wisdom of God is utterly incompetent to dis- 
tinguish aright between good and evil. Also the darkness 
in which the light of the mortal life goes out represents 
and symbolizes the horrible darkness to spiritual things 
which sin has brought into the soul of man. The pain and 
agony and sorrow of dissolving nature represent the pain 
and agony and sorrow of spiritual and eternal death—what 
Jesus calls ‘the worm that never dies, and the fire that 
never shall be quenched.’ And in that death comes upon 
all the children of Adam, even upon infants, it signifies 
that spiritual death, in germ if not in full growth and 
development, is implanted in every human soul. For “by 
one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin ; and 
so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned.” 

In fine, this fearful chastisement was laid upon man in 
mercy, and not in wrath, as indispensable to his salvation. 
For the awful apprehension and fear of death is one of the 
strongest motives to deter from crime, and to lead sinners 
to repentance. If it had not been for this, there is little 
room for doubt but that the human race would have sunk 
into irretrievable perdition. We see evidences of this in 
the history of the old world, when the life of man was 
almost indefinitely prolonged, and universal corruption 
prevailed, so that, as it would seem, even God could do 
nothing better with the race than to destroy it. For the 
symbol and chastisement of death occurred so seldom from 
natural causes, and could be regarded as so far off, or un- 
certain, that its influence to deter from crime could scarcely: 
have been felt. Hence mankind were left free to rush 
into the most horrible excesses, so that the earth was soon 
filled with violence and blood. And when the time came 
for a Divine promise that there should be no more a flood, 


180 ‘WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


and, consequently, that moral corruption should never 
again rise to such a height as to make one necessary, 
human life had to be greatly shortened, and the frequency 
of death correspondingly increased, as one of God’s 
greatest mercies and moral influences for the purification 
of human nature. And now death occurs go frequently 
in every community and in the bosom of every family, 
the sorrows of bereavement are so universal, life is so un- 
certain to the young as well as to the old, that only the 
most hardened can be insensible to the awe and fear which 
these influences naturally awaken, or insusceptible to the 
motives which they supply to prepare for eternity. In- 
deed, when the king of terrors enters into our houses, and 
lays his cold hands on our most beautiful and best beloved, 
when we behold them in the agonies of dissolving nature, 
the light of their mortal life going out in utter dark- 
ness, and when we consign their bodies to the tomb, we 
cannot help feeling ourselves to be Divinely instructed and 
admonished that this earth is not our home, and of our 
need of being ever prepared for our own decease, Thus, 
also, the consciousness of immortality is nourished in our 
souls by the hopes which we cannot but cherish of re- 
union in the spiritual world with our loved ones who 
have gone before us. Hence it would seem that, apart 
from such influences, the Lord’s purposes of grace and 
salvation could not have been realized, and that the thorn 
and the thistle are no more a blessing in disguise than the 
certainty and frequency of death. 

Nor-can this powerful symbol ever be dispensed with, 
except as the Lord’s salvation makes progress in the world, 
by which, we are assured, the power of death shall 
ultimately be broken and destroyed. In fact, the average 
length of human life in Christian countries is now far 
greater than in any others. Wars, pestilences and famines 
are less frequent and less destructive in such countries 
than formerly they were, and still are among pagan and 


THE JUDGMENT UPON MAN 181 


Mohammedan nations, where Christian morality has gained 
no footing, where agriculture is less developed, where 
facilities for the transportation of food are altogether in- 
adequate, and where municipal cleanliness and sanitary 
science are almost unknown. Meanwhile, death is not 
death to the Lord’s true people. For them He has con- 
quered this king of terrors; “ hath abolished death, and 
brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.” 
To the true Christian, the grave is no longer dark, since 
the Saviour has burst open its portals. It is now the 
low door through which, bowing our heads, we enter the 
glorious mansions of our Father’s house. And in this 
sense it is written: “The last enemy that shall be destroyed 
is death....O death, where is thy sting! O grave, where 
is thy victory!” 


XI 
THE CLOTHING WITH SKINS 


Unto the man also and his wife did the Lord God make coats of 
skins and clothed them. 


Gop did not spare, as we have seen, to pronounce and 
inflict upon man for his sin the tremendous judgments 
of labor and sorrow and death; and can it be supposed 
that He now goes about to provide him with a good suit 
of clothes, and that, by such means as stripping their skins 
from innocent animals, for no other purpose than to keep 
-him warm, or to relieve him from a trifling bodily incon- 
venience? No, this transaction cannot be so understood. 
Rationally considered, it must be recognized as a Divine 
mystery. 

Tn order to disclose its symbolical meaning, we must re- 
call the origin and significance of the shame of the naked 
body, as having sprung up in the human heart out of the 
spiritual shame of sin, which it symbolizes and represents. 
This physical shame the first sinners tried to cover for 
themselves, as best they could, with a flimsy girdle of fig- 
leaves. But, conscious that this was altogether inadequate, 
they were still ashamed and ‘afraid because they were 
naked,’ and fled to hide themselves from the presence of 
God amidst the trees of the garden. Here, being dis- 
covered by the Voice which followed them, they were com- 
pelled to render themselves up to the Divine judgment. 
And now they are clothed, not by their own but by the 
hands of God himself, in the skins of slain animals, and 
thus their shame is effectually covered. 

182 


THE CLOTHING WITH SKINS 183 


Morever, that these animals were slain for sacrificial pur- 
poses hardly admits of a doubt when we consider that 
such sacrifices were certainly prescribed and enjoined upon 
this first human family. We have satisfactory evidence 
of this in the sacrifices of Cain and Abel. For in the 
epistle to the Hebrews, we are informed that “by faith 
Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, 
by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God 
testifying of his gifts.’ Now faith, in its Scriptural sense, 
always implies a revelation from God in some form as its 
object. Hence the question necessarily arises, what had 
God revealed to these two brethren in which Abel believed, 
and in which Cain had no faith? In answer to this ques- 
tion, let it be observed, because it is significantly stated, 
that the sacrifices themselves were as different as were the 
receptions which they met with: “Cain brought of 
the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord, and 
Abel brought of the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat 
thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his 
offering, but unto Cain and to his offering he had not 
respect.” From this it might reasonably be inferred, and 
with a strong probability, that God had commanded them 
both to offer bloody sacrifices. But the subsequent words 
of God’s remonstrance with Cain leave noroom for doubt 
upon this point: “And the Lord God said unto Cain, 
Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? 
If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if 
thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door.” Now the 
Hebrew word here translated “sin ” is frequently used, and 
elsewhere it is so rendered, in the sense of a sin-offering. 
Also, the word “lieth,” more literally, is lying, is most fre- 
quently applied to animals. It contains even a reference 
to the peculiar manner in which quadrupeds dispose of 
their four legs in lying down to rest. For these reasons, 
the best Hebrew scholars and interpreters of Scripture 
have long been agreed in rendering “sin lieth at the door” 


184 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE' 


a sin-offering is lying down at the door ; and, thus inter- 
preted, the sense of this Divine remonstrance with Cain js 
as follows: Why art thou disappointed and angry? What 
else couldst thou expect but that thine offering should be 
rejected? If, indeed, thou hadst been without sin, it, : 
consisting of fruits and flowers, would have been appro- 
priate and acceptable; nay, thou wouldst have been ac- 
cepted without any offering. But, being a sinner, a differ- 
ent offering was properly required of thee. Even yet, how- 
ever, it is not too late; for the animal which I have desig- 
nated asa sin-offering is now lying down at the door of 
thy tent. Take that,and having shed its blood, offer it 
to me in sacrifice, with confession of thy sins, and thou 
too shalt be forgiven and accepted. Hence the inference 
that the family of Adam had received a Divine command 
requiring them to offer bloody sacrifices, and that it was 
this revelation in which Abel believed, and Cain did not, 
seems inevitable: nor can we conceive of any more proba- 
ble occasion on which these sacrifices were first offered 
than that on which God clothed the first sinners in the 
skins of slain animals. 

Here, then, in the very commencement of human his- 
tory, as soon as sin had entered into the world, God _insti- 
tuted that stupendous system of education and preparation 
for man’s redemption by the sacrifice of the innocent for 
the guilty, of which we have such a full account in the 
Old Testament, and which He carried on with the utmost 
rigor and persistency until the great Victim suffered on 
the cross of Calvary. | For this was an idea so foreign and 
naturally revolting to the wisdom of this world that it 
had to be laboriously educated into the human mind, in 
order to render faith in the validity and efficacy of the 
sacrifice of Christ to take away the sin of the world even 
a possibility. Hence this education was commenced as 
soon as man had sinned, even before he had left his prime- 
val abode: and throughout the long line of patriarchs from 


THE CLOTHING WITH SKINS 185 


Adam to Moses, no other sacrifice, except this of Cain, is 
ever offered to God but those of animals in their blood. 
This primeval revelation flowing down through the ages 
in all the divergent streams of human life, affords us the 
most probable explanation of the offering of such sacri- 
fices among the heathen, in which they may have been 
supported and confirmed also by a Divine instinct, like 
that of their blind faith in God, in immortality, and in a 
future judgment. 

But in order that this educational preparation might be 
carried on in the most systematic and effectual manner, God, 
in due time, called Abraham out of the world, and made 
him the covenant head of a chosen people, whom he se- 
questered, as far as possible, from all foreign influences, 
and enjoined upon them an all-moulding system of political, 
social, moral and ritual institutions, laws and observances, 
in all which He seems to have kept this object steadily in 
view. Even the principal events of their history, such as 
those of the smitten rock of Horeb, and the brazen ser- 
pent in the wilderness, seem to have been Divinely ordained 
and pre-arranged with the distinct purpose of preparing 
their minds for the great sacrifice upon which the destiny of 
the world was to depend. But, above all, there were three 
lines of such preparation which require to be distinguished 
from all the others, and more particularly elucidated. 

The first of these is that vast and most wonderful ritual 
of bloody sacrifices which was enjoined upon them by 
Moses, and which is so particularly and minutely de- 
scribed in the book of Leviticus. * This continued in 
force, and the burden of it was borne by the people 
with astonishing patience and constancy, for 1500 years ; 


* The criticisms of Kuenen, Wellhausen, Robertson Smith and others, 
in the judgment of the author, utterly fail to prove that the book of Le- 
viticus was not written by Moses. He regards the methods of these 
writers as altogether untrustworthy, and as being speculative rather than 
critical. 


186 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


during which, every morning and evening, and on all ex- 
traordinary occasions in the lives of individuals and in 
that of the nation, the blood of innocent victims, with the 
confession of sins, was offered to God. And, once a year, 
on the great day of atonement, the high priest, in the 
presence of the congregated thousands of Israel, made con- 
fession, in “large utterance,” of the sins of the whole 
people, with the shedding of the blood of sacrificial animals, 
which he took and sprinkled on the mercy-seat of Jehovah- 
between-the-cherubim in the Holy of Holies. Almost 
everything in that ritual was purified with blood, ‘and 
without the shedding of blood was no remission of sins.’ 
This idea lay at the bottom of almost all the prescribed 
rites of the worship of God. It was symbolized and rep- 
resented in every conceivable form. The whole religious, 
social and political life of the people was made to centre in 
and revolve around it from generation to generation and 
from age to age: and all this, that they might be filled with 
it, and their minds moulded upon it, that it might become 
the object of all their hopes for time and eternity. Such 
pains did God take to prepare the people out of whom the 
great sacrifice was to come, so that among them there might 
be raised up those who should believe in it, and go forth to 
preach it with power to ail other nations. 

No less educational and preparatory were the mediation 
and ministry of the prophets, who were appointed of God 
as the organs of His authoritative communications to His 
people in fulfillment of His declaration to Moses : “I will 
raise up unto them a prophet from among their brethren 
like unto thee, and I will put my words into his mouth, 
and he shall speak unto them all that I command him : 
and it shall come to pass that whosoever will not hearken — 
unto the words which he shall speak in my name, I will 
require it of him.” For this wonderful prediction eyi- 
dently referred primarily to that long line of prophets 
who succeeded Moses for more than a thousand years, and 


THE CLOTHING WITH SKINS are 


ultimately to the great Prophet who should come into the 
world as the crowning term of the series. In this way, the 
people were familiarized with the idea of mediation be- 
tween God and man, and with that of authoritative rev- 
elations of the spiritual world through mediatorship. 
This preparation was carried still further by that vast body 
of prediction concerning the Mediator to come which was 
delivered by the prophets, and in which were explicitly 
foretold His genealogical descent from Abraham through 
Judah and Dayid, His supernatural birth of a virgin, the 
mystical constitution of His person as Immanuel, both God 
and man, the sinless perfection and sublime self-sacrifice of 
His character and life, His miracles and mighty works, and 
all the principal events of His earthly history, especially, 
His most holy sacrifice for the sins of the world, together 
with the regeneration of human life and society which 
should follow it, and the salvation of all who should be- 
lieve in Him. But, above all, the circumstantial particu- 
larity with which the prophets described His sufferings and 
atoning death was evidently intended to deepen and per- 
fect the impression made by the ritual of bloody sacrifices, 
that salvation could come to man in no other way than by 
the sacrifice of the innocent in place of the guilty. For 
these prophecies commence with the words of God to the 
original tempter of mankind : “TI will put enmity between 
thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her Seed : 
He shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel.” 
They are continued in the Messianic Psalms as follows : 
“T am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of 
joint. My heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of 
my bowels. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and 
my tongue cleaveth to my jaws, and thou hast brought me 
into the dust of death. For dogs have compassed me 
about, and the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me ; 
they pierced my hands and my feet.... They parted my 
garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.” 


188 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


And the mediatorial and sacrificial character of His suffer- 
ings is thus exhibited: “Surely He hath borne our griefs, 
and carried our sorrows....He was wounded for our 
transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities ; the chas- 
tisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes 
we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray ; we 
have turned every one to his own way ; and the Lord hath 
laid upon Him the iniquity of us all.” In fine, the great 
object which should be accomplished by His sacrificial 
mediation : “ When thou shalt make His soul an offering 
for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, 
and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hands, 
He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satis- 
fied. By His knowledge [by the knowledge of himeelf ] 
shall my Righteous Servant justify many, for He shall 
bear their iniquities.... Because He hath poured out 
His soul unto death, and was numbered with the trans- 
gressors, and bare the sin of many, and made intercession 
for the transgressors :” the final result of all which should 
be, “to finish the transgression, and to make an end of 
sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring 
in everlasting righteousness.” These are only a few ex- 
amples of innumerable predictions in which the sacrifice 
of the great Victim, together with its consequences, was 
foretold in preparation for His coming, and which do not 
only demonstrate that sacrificial atonement for the sins of 
mankind entered into the Divine purposes of grace and 
salvation from the foundation of the world, but, also, by 
their punctual fulfilment in Jesus Christ, constitute over- 
whelming evidence that He was the true Messiah. 

Also, the moral law, as delivered through the mediation 
of Moses, was intended from the first as a means to the 
same ultimate object: “The law was our schoolmaster 
[pedagogue] to bring us to Christ.” For with all its per- 
fection it could not save men from their sins. N ay, its 
perfection was the very thing which excluded them from 


THE CLOTHING WITH SKINS 189 


salvation. For it required a faultless obedience in thought, 
word and deed, and pronounced utter condemnation on 
every transgression: “Cursed is every one that continueth 
not in all things which are written in the book of the law 
to do them.” It always was, and forever must be, impos- 
sible for sinful man to satisfy the claims of this law, not 
only because he is “without strength” unto a perfect obe- 
dience, but also because it finds him already a sinner, and 
under its condemnation, its demands being that it should 
never have been violated. 

“ Wherefore, then, serveth the law?” What was the 
precise effect which it was intended to work in order to 
prepare men for faith in the sacrifice of Christ? St. Paul, 
especially in his epistles to the Romans and Galatians, 
labors to elucidate this point. “The law,” he tells us, 
“was added because of transgression, until the Seed should 
come.... The law entered that the offence might abound.... 
By the law is the knowledge of sin.” He certainly does 
not mean by this that the law was given for the purpose 
of rendering man more sinful than he would otherwise 
have been, for sin is ever the abominable thing which God 
hates, and for the putting away of which He has made 
the greatest of all possible sacrifices. His eternal opposi- 
tion to sin is just that which the law reveals and expresses 
by the terrible rigor of its prohibitions and condemnations. 
But the inborn corruption of human nature [7 dyapta| 
does not become actual transgression until the claims of 
the law are brought to bear upon it, “for where no law is 
there is no transgression ;” nor is it recognized by the sin- 
ner as truly and properly sin, until it does pass into trans- 
gression. In fact, the consciences of those who are ignorant 
of the law, although their lives may be sunk in the depths 
of moral corruption, give them little trouble. But when 
they come to the knowledge of the law, this inherited cor- 
ruption of their moral nature, by the acts of transgression 
to which it prompts, is evolved or brought out in the con- 


190 | WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


sciousness and convictions of the soul, as the root, principle 
and very substance of all sin. Hence the agonized cry of 
the holy apostle: “ When I would do good evil is present 
with me....O wretched man that I am, who shall de- 
liver me from the body of this death?” The law, there- 
fore, is God’s means for making man to know how deep 
and radical his sinfulness is, and how helpless he is in 
himself under it, in order that thus he may be brought to 
feel his need of a Saviour. 

It is true, however, that the law, though not the cause, 
is the incidental occasion of man’s becoming more sinful 
than he ever could have been without it. This is frankly 
conceded by the apostle in such passages as the following: 
“Without the law sin was dead.... Iwas alive without 
the law once; but when the commandment came, sin re- 
vived and I died.... For sin, taking occasion by the 
commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me....Sin, 
taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all 
manner of concupiscence.... The strength of sin is the 
law.” His meaning is, that the moral corruption of hu- 
man nature, by the pressure of the holy law, is stirred up 
to actual transgression and self-conscious rebellion; and 
the same truth is contained in the words of the Lord: “If 
I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had 
sin.” Yet, as St. Paul strenuously insists, because the law 
is not the cause, but only the incidental occasion, of this in- 
creased sinfulness, this is not to be ascribed to the law, but 
to its true and proper cause, which is the native depravity 
of the human heart: “ For the law is holy, and the com- 
mandment is holy and just and good.... But Iam carnal, 
sold under sin.... Was, then, that which is good made 
death unto me? God forbid. But sin [it was, this de- 
praved, perverse, corrupt moral nature, which was in me 
before I knew any law—this it was which was made death 
unto me] that it might appear sin [from the fact of its] 
working death in me by that which is good; that sin by 


THE CLOTHING WITH SKINS 191 


the commandment might become exceeding sinful.” In 
other words, the exceeding sinfulness of the moral nature 
in man is brought out and demonstrated by the fact, that 
it perverts and abuses the just and holy and good law of 
God into an occasion of becoming more sinful than were 
otherwise possible. 

All this in man proceeds from the same thing which in 
Adam made him afraid of God, and drove him to fly and 
hide himself from the Divine presence. For the law 
represents God in the sole attribute of justice, making in- 
quisition for sin, and pronouncing condemnation upon the 
sinner; whom it finds in rebellion against its authority, 
with his mind darkened, and his heart alienated and hard- 
ened, so that he can neither feel nor see the paramount 
claims of Divine justice, and so grounded and built up 
in selfishness that he naturally prefers his own gratification 
to all other things, and cannot consent that even the justice 
of God, which has now become a terrible and hateful 
object, should be executed. Hence, whilst God is thus 
represented to his mind through the medium of the law 
alone, which thunders its fearful doom upon every trans- 
gression, his Maker himself becomes the object, not only 
of his fear, but also of his enmity ; and this is the crown- 
ing term in the development of sin—to hate God is the 
life of spiritual death. From all this, it seems evident 
enough, that, whilst man continues under the law, 2. e. 
whilst he regards it as a full and complete revelation of 
the character of God; whilst he continues to be agitated 
by the fearand embittered by the enmity which it stirs 
up in his heart, he cannot because he will not, or he 
will not because he cannot, return to God in submission, 
faith, love and obedience, but remains under a moral 
necessity to fly further and further from the source of 
his life, and to plunge himself deeper and deeper into 
sin and perdition. For, in the words of St. Paul: “ The 
Scripture hath shut up all under sin, that the promise 


192 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that 
believe.” 

Through such experience as this the sinner comes to sce 
and feel that, if he is ever to be saved at all, he must have 
some further revelation of the Divine character beyond all 
that is contained in the law; and thus his mind is opened, 
and he is otherwise prepared for the new disclosures of 
the gospel. Hence his need of a final and all-controlling 
revelation that God is not his enemy, but his best friend, 
even his Heavenly Father. He must be convinced that 
even the Divine justice, which pronounces the sentence of 
death upon the Adam in him, is not inconsistent, but is 
co-existent with such mercy and compassion and love in 
God that He is ready and willing to make the greatest possi- 
ble sacrifice to save him from hissins. And because his sin 
consists in the adoption and preference of his own wisdom 
in place of the Divine as the guide and supreme law of 
his life, this manifestation of the love and fatherly heart 
of God towards him must be made in such form and man- 
ner that he cannot possibly believe in it without having 
the pride of his own wisdom crushed, and the wisdom 
of God restored to its true place and supreme authority 
over his mind and heart and life. 

What, now, is that grand and solemn mystery which de- 
mands or can be fitly announced and ushered into the 
world by such a stupendous scheme of preparation as this? 
What can be the proper end and fulfilment of this vast 
ritual of shedding the blood of innocent animals, and 
offering them to God with confession of sins, during so 
many centuries? By what unique event in the history of 
mankind can the ministry and the predictions of the 
prophets through so many generations be crowned and 
fulfilled ? How shall the expectation of a more full and 
complete revelation of the character and heart of God, 
which has been awakened and nourished by so many ages 
of a legal dispensation, be so met as to satisfy man’s deep- 


THE CLOTHING WITH SKINS 193 


est necessities by reconciling him to God, and saving him 
from his sins? Let the answer be given in God’s own 
words: 

GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD THAT HE GAVE HIS ONLY 
BEGOTTEN SON THAT WHOSOEVER BELIEVETH IN HIM 
SHOULD NOT PERISH BUT HAVE EVERLASTING LIFE... 
Wom GOD HATH SET FORTH TO BE A PROPITIATION 
THROUGH FAITH IN HIS BLOOD TO DECLARE HIS RIGHT- 
EOUSNESS FOR THE REMISSION OF SINS THAT ARE PAST... 
THAT HE MIGHT BE JUST AND THE JUSTIFIER OF HIM 
WHICH BELIEVETH IN JESUS... HE IS THE PROPITIATION 
FOR OUR SINS AND NOT FOR OURS ONLY BUT ALSO FOR 
THE SINS OF THE WHOLE WORLD... FoR WHEN WE WERE 
YET WITHOUT STRENGTH IN DUE TIME CHRIST DIED FOR 
THE UNGODLY... WHEN WE WERE ENEMIES WE WERE 
RECONCILED TO GOD BY THE DEATH OF HIS Son... In 
HIM WAS THE LOVE OF GOD MANIFESTED... HEREIN IS 
LOVE NOT THAT WE LOVED GOD BUT THAT HE LOVED 
US AND SENT HIS SON TO BE THE PROPITIATION FOR OUR 
SINS... GOD COMMENDETH HIS LOVE TOWARD US IN THAT 
WHILE WE WERE YET SINNERS CHRIST DIED FOR US... 
GREAT IS THE MYSTERY OF GODLINESS—Gop WAS IN 
CHRIST RECONCILING THE WORLD UNTO HIMSELF NOT 
IMPUTING THEIR TRESPASSES UNTO THEM 

Such, shen, is the grand mystery of the gospel, by which 
the sacrificial ritual and the prophetic ministry of the Old 
Testament are fulfilled and crowned ; which reveals God 
in the fulness of His mercy and love; which brings de- 
liverance from the condemnation of the law; which 
crushes forever the head of the serpent in man; which 
‘finishes the transgression, makes an end of sins, and 
brings in everlasting righteousness,’ | 

For this most holy sacrifice of Christ is a stupendous mys- 
tery. This arises from the fact that it stands as a middle 
term between the incomprehensible nature of God and the 
no less ROUT PRE n ena e nature of moral evil. It reaches 


194 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


upwards into the infinity of God’s being and attributes 
and downwards into the unfathomable depths of the origin 
and nature of sin. Hence it is, and must forever remain, 
a mystery to the finite mind; that is to say, it cannot be 
analyzed by logical processes, nor explained in logical con- 
ceptions. Let aman analyze God, explain God; let him 
solve to the satisfaction of the rational understanding the 
problem of the origin of evil: then may he undertake to 
explain why the innocent must suffer for the guilty, and 
how such suffering avails and operates efficaciously to 
atone for sin. Yet many attempts have been made at 
such explanations, but all of them have proved signal 
failures, as may be made to appear from one or two 
examples. 

The first of these represents this sacrifice as having its 
necessity in public justice, as a grand governmental scheme 
to save the honor and maintain the authority of the vio- 
lated law in the eyes of the moral universe, to which also 
the mercy and love of God are thus manifested. But it 
is certain that this view does not explain the ultimate 
ground of its necessity, as may be evinced by such con- 
siderations as the following: 1. The distinction which this 
scheme implies between God and His law cannot be main- 
tained. Tor His law is the undistorted reflection and 
image of His nature and character, as respects the attri- 
bute of justice ; how, then, can there be anything in this 
reflection which is not in that which is reflected? Con- 
sequently, if God’s law demands such a sacrifice, there 
must be something in Him which demands it. In like 
manner the public justice of God can be nothing else but 
His essential justice, as realized and manifested in the goy- 
ernment of His moral creatures. Hence we may eliminate 
the ideas of law and publicity from the whole question, 
and consider it as one between God himself and His sinful 
creatures, 2. The Divine law, as revealed to us, does not 
demand that the innocent shall suffer for the guilty, but 


THE CLOTHING WITH SKINS 195 


that every one shall be punished for his own sins: “The 
soul that sinneth it shall die,” and not another in its stead. 
How, then, can the law be satisfied or vindicated by that 
which it does not demand, and which, by its very terms, 
it excludes? 3. When the sacrifice of Christ is thus re- 
solved into a mere manifestation to make an impression 
upon the moral universe, if we Suppose, as for the pur- 
pose of testing the scheme we have a logical right to do, 
that there is no such universe, but God alone with only 
one moral creature, and that this creature has sinned—in 
this case, there is no conceivable necessity for any such 
sacrifice, because there is no moral universe to be impressed 
by it. For aught that appears, that one sinner could be 
forgiven and saved as well without as with it. But from 
the manner in which it is always represented in Scripture, 
and from the personal and vital relation to it of every 
individual believer, there seems to be no room for doubt 
but that it would have been as necessary for that one 
sinner as it is for a million, or for mankind at large. 
4. If the sacrifice of Christ have no other object but this 
of manifestation, for the purpose of making a good im- 
pression upon the moral universe ; if it have no validity 
or necessity but that of its good effect as a public spec- 
tacle, it necessarily loses, as soon as this becomes known, 
all power to work any such effect. For what good im- 
pression can be produced on our minds by beholding the 
innocent suffering for the guilty, when we fully under- 
stand that there is no necessity for it but that of making 
such an impression? In fact, this conception of the 
most holy sacrifice reduces it to the category of a spectac- 
ular and theatrical performance, which, as soon as we are 
admitted behind the scenes, and are allowed to recognize 
its unreal character, loses all its power of illusion upon 
which its effect depends: to us it is no longer a real 
transaction. When, e. 9., we behold on the stage the 
murder of king Henry VI by Richard ILI, if the illusion 


196 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


be well nigh perfect, and we can almost think it real, we 
are ready to start from our seats and ery out, Lay hold — 
on the bloody murderer: but when we remember that it is 
nothing but a spectacular performance, having no ground 
or validity in itself, and no object but to produce a moral 
impression, we contemplate it with entire equanimity, and 
go home to sleep and forget it. rom such considerations 
as these, we easily see that this governmental scheme affords 
no adequate explanation of the sacrifice of Christ. In 
fact, it is only when we understand that there is an eternal 
necessity for the sacrifice, arising out of the nature of 
God and the nature of sin, that it produces the effects 
which are ascribed to it asa spectacle. Then, indeed, it 
makes the most profound and awful impression upon the 
moral universe; then it constitutes the most glorious 
manifestation of the justice, grace, mercy and love of God ; 
then does it accomplish all the governmental ends which 
this scheme has in view. 

Another conception of this Divine mystery represents 
it as a true and effectual propitiation and satisfaction ren- 
dered to the essential justice of God, apart from which He 
could not, without the sacrifice of justice, have had mercy 
upon sinners, but must have treated them in all respects 
as they deserved—as that by which He makes it right for 
Him to forgive and save sinners, which otherwise would 
have been wrong. Properly, also, it includes the idea, 
that this propitiation renders God propitious, or disposed 
in himself to show mercy, although there are many 
theologians who dé not so understand it. This view is 
evidently much more profound, and probably a nearer 
approach to the truth than the preceding, but it is encum- 
bered with very grave difficulties, and consequently it fails 
to give entire satisfaction to the logical understanding. 

For, in the first place, it does not, any more than the 
preceding, account for the substitution of the innocent in 
place of the guilty, nor show how this can be any true or 


THE CLOTHING WITH SKINS AST 


proper satisfaction to Divine justice. Theologians, in dis- 
cussing these points, not unfrequently resort to sophistical 
reasonings. or God, they tell us, revealing His essential 
Justice in His law, declares that all sin must be punished, 
but does not declare unchangeably upon whom this punish- 
ment is to be inflicted, whether upon the sinner himself, or 
upon a substitute; and this declaration, we are further 
told, is confirmed by the universal consciousness of man- 
kind. But, unfortunately, neither of these statements is 
true. or the human consciousness does not yield abstract 
or general propositions such as this; they are reached only 
by the logical processes of abstraction and generalization. 
Consciousness, in all its deliverances, is exclusively con- 
crete and particular. Search it as we may, we find no 
such proposition as this, that all sin must be punished ; but 
we do find, after every known transgression, as written 
upon our very souls, the affirmation, This my sin ought to 
be punished upon me. Now, from this deliverance of con- 
sciousness, we may lawfully, as we find it to be universal, 
abstract the universal proposition, that all sin ought to be 
punished, but we cannot lawfully reason upon or draw 
conclusions from it as if it left the subject of such punish- 
ment undetermined. In strictness of logic, the proposition 
requires to be completed in this form, All sin ought to be 
punished on the sinner himself, which must be accepted or 
rejected in its totality. For whatever invalidates either 
part of it is equally destructive of the other. Still less, 
if possible, is the mutilated form of this proposition con- 
tained in any revelation of His justice which God has 
given us. For His law, as we have seen, proclaims in 
thunder-words, that the sinner must be punished for his 
own sins: “ Cursed is every one that continueth not in all 
things which are written in the book of the law to do 
them.” This is the voice of Divine justice, which cer- 
tainly makes no provision for a substitute to suffer in the 
sinner’s stead. How, then, it must be asked here, as in 


198 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


the former case, cah this law be satisfied with what it does 
not demand, and which is excluded by the very terms in 
which it is revealed? In fact, this attempt to show a 
necessity for the sacrifice of Christ from the groundless 
assumption, that the justice of God and human conscious- 
ness declare that all sin must be punished, but do not 
specify upon whom, whether upon the guilty or the inno- 
cent, is one of the most transparent sophisms ever devised 
to reconcile the wisdom of God with that of man. 

In the second place, there is no Scriptural warrant for 
the notion, that, apart from the sacrifice of Christ, God 
would have been obliged in justice to treat all sinners as 
they deserved, and still less, if possible, for that of its 
rendering him propitious, or disposed to show mercy. 
For everywhere it is represented as having originated in 
the antecedent love of God for the sinful world. In- 
fluenced by this love He provided the Victim, and that, 
since nothing else would do, by surrendering His only 
begotten Son to the accursed death of the cross: “God so 
loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that 
whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have 
everlasting life.’ And this gift of His Son must necessa- 
rily be conceived of as implying and manifesting ante- 
cedently all the grace, mercy and love which flow from 
it. Hence all gracious dispositions must be recognized 
as existing in full activity in the heart of God prior 
to the atonement, and not as procured by it. He, then, 
apart from the atonement, was not obliged in justice to 
treat sinners as they deserved, for manifestly He did 
not so treat them when He gave His Son to ransom 
them by the sacrifice of himself from the punishment 
which they justly deserved. No less evident is it that God 
did not need to be propitiated, in the strict or proper sense 
of that word, for He was as propitious to sinners as it is 
conceivable that He could be when He provided such a 
Victim to suffer in their stead. Finally, if it would have 


THE CLOTHING WITH SKINS 199 


been inconsistent with His essential justice for Him to for- 
give and save sinners without an atonement, how was_ it 
not such for him to show them that mercy which provided 
an atonement for them ? 

These are some of the difficulties in consequence of 
which this method of evincing a necessity that the imno- 
cent should suffer for the guilty can never give entire satis- 
faction to the logical understanding. And, in fact, when 
this great mystery of grace and salvation is believed in on 
such grounds as either of these schemes presents, and 
otherwise would be rejected, it is received only because it 
is thought to commend itself to that very wisdom of man 
which, as applied to spiritual things, it is intended to crush. 
Now, from the failure of these two most comprehensive, 
plausible and widely accepted philosophies of the atone- 
ment, and from the fact that it isa middle term between 
two incomprehensible infinities, we may fairly conclude that 
it was intended forever to remain an insoluble mystery to 
our finite minds. Whence its necessity arises, and how it 
operates efficaciously to atone for sin, we must regard as 
among the secrets which God has reserved unto himself, 
and which, no doubt, it is absolutely impossible for us 
to comprehend, or resolve intellectually, so that they 
should be no longer mysteries to us. Indeed, we are 
Divinely forewarned that this substitution of the innocent in 
place of the guilty under the law and the justice of God 
could not be other than foolishness in the eyes of man’s wis- 
dom. For it is this substitution, beyond all other things, 
which makes the cross of Christ “a stumbling-block to 
the Jew and folly to the Greek,” 7. ¢. the greatest possible 
offence to the wisdom of this world, in all its variant 
national forms and different degrees of development and 
culture; not because it is folly, for in itself it is “the wisdom 
of God,” but because human wisdom is foolishness with 
God, and “the foolishness of God is wiser than men.” 
Hence it is not to be received or believed in for the above nor 


200 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


any other explanations which have been or ever can be given 
of it, but simply on the authority of God, who has taken 
such infinite pains to educate and prepare the human mind 
for the faith of it, and has set it forth in Christ as the sole 
ground and hope of human salvation. This is the 
strongest evidence we could have of its necessity and effi- 
cacy. ‘The bare fact, that God has given His only begot- 
ten Son to the cross for us sinners, and that ‘Christ our 
Passover has been sacrificed for us,’ is enough to give us 
assurance, beyond all other knowledge, that, as God viewed 
the matter, who only sees all things as they are, there was 
an infinite necessity for this great sacrifice, and of its 
Divine efficacy to take away our sins. Nay, it is safe to 
say that God himself did not know any other way in 
which He could save sinners, for if there had been any 
other way known to Him, He certainly would have spared 
His beloved Son the horrors of the cross. In fact, we do 
not need to understand the grounds of its necessity, nor 
the mode of its efficacious operation. On the contrar 7, it 
was fitting and altogether indispensable that our sal- 
vation should be made to depend upon something which 
could not be other than mysterious to us in the highest 
degree ; in which we could not believe without the most 
plenary renunciation and abnegation of our own wisdom 
in application to spiritual things, and the most absolute 
and perfect submission of our minds to the authority of 
the wisdom of God. And this is just what takes place in 
every soul that comes to believe in this transcendent 
mystery. For when we do truly believe in the necessity, 
validity and efficacy of the sacrifice of Christ to atone for 
our sins, receiving it as the truth of God and the sole 
ground of our salvation, though it be foolishness in the 
eyes of our wisdom, then do we truly and utterly renounce 
and repudiate our own wisdom, and submit ourselves to 
the wisdom of God, as the only adequate guide of dis- 
tinction between truth and falsehood, good and eyil. 


THE CLOTHING WITH SKINS 201 


Here only do we fully recognize our own wisdom as fool- 
ishness with God, so that our confidence in it is forever 
subdued and overthrown; here only do we restore the 
wisdom of God to its true and original place and authority 
over our minds, hearts and lives. Thus it is, and not 
otherwise, that the head of the serpent in man is finally 
crushed under the bruised heel of the Seed of the woman, 
and that which was lost in the fall is recovered by faith in 
the atonement. 

But if any one should ask, How can we believe in what 
seems foolishness to our wisdom? the following illustration 
may be given to solve this difficulty, and to throw still 
further light upon the relation to God’s authority into 
which we come by the faith of this mystery. A little 
child, being left to his own judgment, will be perfectly 
sure, from the impression which the sun makes upon his 
sense of sight, that it moves through the sky, whilst the 
earth stands still. But his father informs him that this is 
not true; that the sun, contrary to all appearances, stands 
still, whilst the earth, which seems so solid and immovable, 
is spinning round faster than his top. He is too young as 
yet, and his mind is too feeble for him to receive any 
demonstration of this truth, but he has faith in his father’s 
superior knowledge and wisdom, consequently he believes 
what he tells him, although it be thus contrary to all ap- 
pearances. Now, in the exercise of such faith, in direct 
opposition to what would be his own independent judg- 
ment, he necessarily renounces his own wisdom, as not 
valid in the premises, and submits his mind to that of his 
father. He cannot so believe without recognizing and 
feeling that his own view of such things, as compared with 
that of his father, is foolishness. Such is the effect produced 
in man, who is God’s little child, by faith in the sacrifice of 
Christ as ‘the great mystery of godliness,’ He, therefore, 
who would explain away its foolishness, which St. Paul was 
so careful to preach, “lest the cross of Christ should be 

OK 


202 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


made of none effect ;” he who would commend it in the 
eyes of man’s carnal wisdom; labors to deprive it of all 
its power to crush the head of theserpent. ‘Thus preached, 
after it has been thoroughly manipulated with this object 
in view, it comes forth like Samson from “ the lap of Philis- 
tean Dalilah ” shorn and betrayed. It is no longer St. Paul’s 
but another gospel, which is neither stumbling-block to the 
Jew nor folly to the Greek, and consequently neither the 
wisdom nor the power of God unto salvation. For this 
great mystery of godliness is revealed from heaven to be sub- 
mitted to, not reasoned away; to be believed in solely on 
the authority of God, and in full recognition of the truth, 
that ‘ His thoughts are not as our thoughts, nor His ways 
as our ways, but high as the heavens are above the earth 
so high are His ways above our ways and His thoughts 
above our thoughts.’ * 

Now, it is in this great sacrifice of atonement for sin 
that God reveals and manifests the fulness of His eternal 
love and pity for us sinners. For when we behold Him 
giving up His only begotten Son to die for us, we cannot 
but ask, What made Him do it? and the answer is, Be- 
cause he so loved us. And when we behold the Son 
himself voluntarily yielding up His soul unto the accursed 
death of the cross, we ask again, What made Him do it? 


* Olshausen, in his comments upon 1 Cor. I, 18, 19, and IT, 6, 7, exhib- 
its this essential opposition between the wisdom of God in the gospel and 
that of man as follows: “The preaching of the gospel, therefore, must 
not be performed in human wisdom; in fact, the latter destroys funda- 
mentally the power of the former because the two (viz. the gospel and human 
wisdom) are antagonistic elements, admitting of no union; one depriving 
the other of its nature, and each striving to annihilate the other. Where, 
therefore, human wisdom rules, the gospel appears as folly; but where 
the gospel bears sway (7. e. has manifested itself as Jivautc Ocod, the Divine 
power which takes man captive) there human wisdom appears as foolish- 
ness, and the preaching of the cross as genuine wisdom....In_ this 
view, the gospel has and ever retains the nature of a mystery which the 
Almighty has prepared for man from the foundation of the world.” 

Olshausen’s Commentary, American Edivion, Vol. IV. pp. 213, 223. 


THE CLOTHING WITH SKINS 203 


and the answer is the same, Because He so loved us. 
Evidently nothing beyond this, as a manifestation of the 
love of God, is conceivable. And He so loved us while we 
were yet in our sins—sinners against Him and enemies of 
His authority, character and person ; else He could not 
consistently lay it upon us as a duty to love our enemies. 
Hence, also, itis written: “God commendeth His love tow- 
ard us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for 
us... When we were enemies, we were reconciled unto 
God by the death of His Son.” 

Moreover, it is through this manifestation alone that 
salvation from our sins reaches us. For when we come 
to believe in the love which is thus revealed, not only is 
our own wisdom recognized and renounced as nothing 
better than folly, but also the delusion which has its 
source in our alienation from God, that He is alienated 
from us and has become our enemy, is scattered to the 
winds; and that fear which springs from our conscious 
guilt, and drives us away from the Divine presence into 
deeper and deeper alienation and enmity, is banished 
from our hearts. Thus we are made free and embol- 
dened to return to God in repentance, faith and love, as 
to the only true source of our life and well-being. Nay, 
we are, in some sort, sweetly constrained and forced thus 
to return. For by this manifestation God follows us out 
into our alienation, rebellion and enmity, and proclaims 
His love to us there; and thus takes away our fear, 
melts our hearts, and wins us back to himself, as it were, 
in spite of ourselves. It is here that we first learn against 
whom and what manner of love we haye sinned. For 
that He should love us, being innocent, does not seem 
strange; but that He should never have been alienated 
in heart from us; that, from the moment when we began 
to sin against Him, He should have devised a way to save 
us, should have prepared a sacrificial Victim in His well- 
beloved Son to bear our sins in His own body on the tree; 


204 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


this, indeed, is the great mystery and wonder of Divine 
love in our eyes. Thus He heaps coals of fire upon our 
heads, and melts our hearts in penitential sorrow for our 
sins, For this brings out our sin as committed against 
such love in God, as so unreasonable, inexcusable, malig- 
nant, loathsome, abominable, that we cannot choose but 
repent of it. This reveals such an unfathomable love in 
the heart of God that, whosoever believes in it, upon him 
it has an overwhelming, soul-subduing power. It melts 
the most obdurate heart. It breaks down the most in- 
veterate enmity. Such is the omnipotence of God’s good- 
ness and love as revealed in Christ. Hence it is written: 
“Sin shall not have dominion over you because ye are 
not under law but under grace... By grace ye are saved.” 
-.. ‘Behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong 
wind of Divine judgment rent the mountains, and brake 
in pieces the rocks, and blew upon my guilty soul ; but the 
Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind, an earth- 
quake of Divine wrath, which caused the solid ground to 
rock under me; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: 
and after tle earthquake, a raging fire of the Divine law 
was kindled up around me; but the Lord was not in the 
fire: but, after the fire, a still small voice, which said 
unto me, I have loved thee with an eternal love, and have 
redeemed thee by the sacrifice of mine only begotten Son. 
That was the voice of God; and when I heard ALD 
wrapped my face in my mantle, and bowed my head, for 
my God had conquered me; and that which gave Him 
the victory was His eternal love as revealed in the most 
holy sacrifice.’ 

This faith in God’s love to us, as manifested in the gift 
of His Son, is the primary and unfailing source of our loye 
to Him. For although He is infinitely lovely in himself, 
yet we, with our minds blinded by the alienation of our 
hearts from Him, do not and cannot discern the glory and 
beauty of His character, until we come to regard Him 


THE CLOTHING WITH SKINS 205 


through this assurance of his love to us: “ We love him 
because he first loved us.” And this assurance, as we can 
easily see, must have been given to our first parents in their 
symbolical clothing by the hand of God in the skins of 
sacrificial animals. Jor, as we have seen, the shame of 
their naked bodies originated in, and thus became the sym- 
bol of their inward and spiritual shame of conscious guilt ; 
and their attempt to cover it with a girdle of fig-leaves 
represented their desire and efforts to disguise, excuse and 
palliate their sin, to cover the shame of it from God and 
from themselves. But they needed a better covering than 
any which they could provide for themselves; for they 
were still ashamed and afraid, and fled to hide themselves 
from the Divine presence. ‘The Voice followed them into 
the depth of their hiding place, and pronounced upon 
them, notwithstanding all their excuses and palliations, 
the sentence of the law which they had violated, that sen- 
tence of death which St. Paul tells us he had received in 
himself, and which every one must receive upon the Adam 
in him when and wheresoever God reaches him with the 
condemnation of the Divine law. But, now, this sentence 
having been pronounced upon them, God gives them a 
sign and token of His graceand love by clothing them in the 
skins of sacrificial animals—a striking symbol of the way 
He has prepared for their salvation; which, together with 
the promise that the Seed of the woman should crush the 
serpent’s head, makes an end of their delusion that He is 
their enemy, and convinces them of the tenderness of His 
fatherly heart towards them. for thus it is declared to 
them in words and by act more significant and expres- 
sive than any words, that He has determined not to leave 
them in their sin and ruin; that their great enemy shall 
not finally triumph over them, though they have put them- 
selves under his power ; that his head shall be crushed by 
the Seed of the woman herself, who has been first in the 
transgression. But they must seek no more to excuse or 


206 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


palliate their sin by devices of their own minds afore 
that they can devise or do for this object must forever 
prove in vain, of no more avail than their girdle of fig- 
leaves to cover their shame. They must lay bare the na- 
kedness and shame of their souls to the searching scrutiny 
of God. He must judge the evil that is in them jn order 
to destroy it out of them. He alone can effectually cover 
their shame and take away their fear. Nor can He do 
this in any way comprehensible to their minds. Their sin 
cannot be put away by any means which their wisdom 
would choose. An innocent victim must suffer in their 
stead. This is foolishness in their eyes, because their wis- 
dom is foolishness with God. It demands the submission 
of their minds to the wisdom of God. And He has pro- 
vided the victim to bear their sin and carry their trans- 
gression. He clothes them in the skins of sacrificial ani- 
mals, the most impervious, substantial and durable material, 
in sign and token, that the covering which He provides for 
sin and shame is complete and perfect, an everlasting right- 
eousness, which once and forever takes away the shame 
and fear which drive deluded souls away from His presence 
and from life. And these robes of righteousness He pro- 
vides for them not otherwise than by the sacrifice of inno- 
cent animals to symbolize and signify that the righteousness 
which only can cover the sin of man must be found in the 
sacrifice of the innocent for the guilty, even of “the Lamb 
that was slain from the foundation of the world.” Thus 
He said to our first parents, as He says to all sinful souls: 
Be no longer ashamed nor afraid, nor fly to hide yourselves 
from my presence; but return to me in filial confidence, 
love and obedience ; for I am your heavenly Father, and 
have covered your nakedness and shame. 

There are innumerable significant allusions both in the 
Old and New Testaments to this symbolical transaction, 
which cannot be understood without constant reference to 
it. These are such as the following: “ He that covereth 


THE CLOTHING WITH SKINS 207 


his own sins shall not prosper.... Woe to the rebellious 
... that cover with a covering, but not of my Spirit, that 
they may add sin to sin.... Blessed is he whose trans- 
gression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.... Thou wast 
naked and bare; I passed by and spread my skirt over 
thee, and covered thy nakedness....Thou hast covered 
all their sins....He hath covered me with the robe of 
righteousness....I counsel thee to buy of me white 
raiment that thou mayest be clothed, that the shame of thy 
nakedness do not appear.” Now, it seems very strange 
that sin should thus be represented as needing to be cov- 
ered. But when we discern in all such allusions their 
pointed reference to its shamefulness, and to the manner in 
which God covered the nakedness of the first sinners, and 
manifested unto them His forgiving love and fatherly ten- 
derness, these expressions become perfectly natural, and 
exceedingly expressive of the deliverance of the human 
soul from conscious guilt and shame and fear through the 
merit and righteousness and most holy sacrifice of the Lord 
Jesus Christ. ; 


XII 
THE EXPULSION FROM PARADISE 


And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us 
to know good and evil: and now lest he put forth his hand and 
take of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever—Therefore the 
Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till the 
ground from whence he was taken. So He drove out the man, 
and He placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubim and a 
flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of the tree 
of life. 


It has been already observed, that, in no intelligible or 
conceivable sense, was man rendered more like God by 
sinning than he was before, because the whole effect of his 
sin must have been to mutilate and deface that image or 
likeness of his Maker in which he was created. What, 
then, are we to understand by these words of God: “Be- 
hold, the man is become as one of us to know good and 
evil”? There is but one possible solution of this diffi- 
culty, which is, that the words be interpreted by the figure 
of speech called solemn irony, the force of which is, that 
the meaning of the ironical expression is precisely the 
opposite of its literal import. But as this may be re- 
garded, in the present case, as a bold procedure, it becomes 
necessary to warrant it by exhibiting the not infrequent 
use which is made of this figure in the Scriptures, and 
even by our Lord himself. 

We call attention, then, in the first place, to the famous 
ironical address of the prophet Elijah to the priests of 
Baal. For after they had sacrificed, “and called on the 
name of Baal from morning until noon, saying, O Baal, 


hear us, but there was no voice, nor any that answered... . 
208 


THE EXPULSION FROM PARADISE 909 


it came to pass at noon that Elijah mocked them, and said, 
Cry aloud, for he is a god! Lither he is talking, or he 
is pursuing [gone a-hunting] or he is on a journey, or 
peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked!” Here, 
now, the prophet evidently means to express the precise 
opposite of the literal import of his words, namely, that 
Baal was no god at all; and this meaning he enforces 
by attributing to him such employments and _ recreations, 
and in these such entire pre-occupation of mind, as pre- 
vented him from attending to the prayers of his deluded 
worshippers ; all which is absurdly inconsistent with the 
notion of his divinity. In this way the prophet pours out 
his righteous indignation upon these misleaders and cor- 
rupters of the people, and exposes the grossness of their 
folly and stupidity more eloquently and with greater 
severity than were otherwise possible. 

In like manner Solomon, using the same figure, exhorts 
the young to give themselves up to levity and excess in the 
enjoyment of earthly pleasure, and to the folly of allowing 
themselves to be guided by their own wisdom, which, as 
we have seen, was the original sin itself: ‘ Rejoice, O 
young man in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in 
the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thy 
heart and in the sight of thine eyes ; but know that for all 
these things God will bring thee into judgment.” Now, 
the former part of this address is evidently ironical, but in 
the latter part the irony is dropped, as is commonly the 
case, In order to guard against misunderstanding. The 
meaning of the whole is: Rejoice not, O young man, in 
these vain and transitory pleasures; wall not in the ways 
of thine own heart, nor in the sight of thine own eyes, 
i. €., follow not thine earthly desires, nor thine own wis- 
dom, as the guide of thy life, since for all these things 
God will surely bring thee to a terrible reckoning. 

Moreover, in the Holy Scriptures, God is frequently 
represented as rebuking sin by solemn mockery of its folly, 


210 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


inasmuch as it consists in man’s rejection of the Divine 
wisdom, and in the preference of his own, in the choice 
between good and evil; and this, even where irony, which 
is the most expressive figure for such mockery, does not 
appear. ‘Thus, in the words of the heavenly Wisdom: 
“ Because [ have called and ye refused; I have stretched 
out my hand and no man regarded; but ye have set at 
naught all my counsel, and would none of my reproof; I 
also will laugh at your calamity, I will mock when your 
fear cometh; when your fear cometh as desolation, and 
your destruction cometh as a whirlwind ; when distress and 
anguish cometh upon you.” It is true that to the senti- 
mentality which now so generally prevails such represen- 
tations may seem harsh, but the only point to be established 
here is, that they are Scriptural; and it is certain that in 
no other way could the folly of sin be so clearly exhibited 
and so powerfully emphasized. 

Again, by the Psalmist, the folly of the nations and their 
rulers in rebellion against God is held up as an object of 
Divine derision: “ Why do the nations rage, and the peo- 
ples imagine vanity? The kings of the earth set them- 
selves, and the rulers take counsel together against the 
Lord, and against His Anointed, saying, Let us break their 
bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He 
that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh ; the Lord shall have 
them in derision.” 

But it is still more worthy of remark that our Lord 
Jesus Christ himself sometimes resorts to this figure of 
irony as being necessary- to the best expression of His 
ideas and sentiments. Thus, when on His return from 
His agony in Gethsemane, after having in the most solemn 
and tender manner requested His disciples to watch and 
pray with Him through His dark hour, He found them 
asleep, He said: “Sleep on now and take your rest; be- 
hold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of man is betrayed 
into the hands of sinners: rise, and let us be going; be- 


THE EXPULSION FROM PARADISE papi 


hold, he is at hand which doth betray me.” Now here 
there are three things to be observed: 1. If He had in- 
tended them to remain asleep, according to the literal im- 
port of His words, He would hardly have addressed them 
in a speech which, in order to have any effect at all upon 
their minds, must have awakened them. 2. In the lat- 
ter part of His address He gives precisely the same reason 
for their awaking which, in the former part and in the 
same breath, He had given for their continuing to sleep, 
namely, the imminence of His betrayal, and which, if it had 
been a good reason for the one, could not have been for 
the other. 3. In order that it might be impossible to 
mistake His meaning, in the latter part of the address He 
drops the figure and expresses himself literally, command- 
ing His disciples to awake, and be ready for the shocking 
event which was about to take place. The whole is as if 
He had said: This is, indeed, a time for you to be sleep- 
ing, when your Lord and Saviour is about to be betrayed 
and crucified! Rise, and let us be going, for the betrayer 
is just at hand. 

In like manner, the whole parable of the unjust steward 
is certainly a strain of terrible irony, although, in default 
of those inflections of the living voice by which, no 
doubt, it was interpreted to those who heard it delivered, 
it does not seem to have been subsequently recognized 
as such. The evidence on this point, however, must be 
placed in a footnote.* In a number of instances, also, 


* The literal interpretation of this parable is involved in insuperable 
difficulties, and the positive evidence of its ironical character is such as 
leaves nothing to desire, except the interpreting power of the living voice, 
and even without this it is demonstrative. For this steward is called to 
account by his lord for having wasted his goods, and is about to be deprived 
of his office: whereupon, in order to make provision for himself, he con- 
spires with his lord’s debtors to defraud him, and his lord commends him 
“because he had done wisely.” Now, here, several things are to be ob- 
served, as, 1. That no master ever thought of commending or praising a 
servant for any wisdom exercised in defrauding himself. Masters have 
quite other thoughts and sentiments when they discover such roguery in 


212 ‘WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


similar ironical passages occur in the writings of the apos- 
tle Paul. 

Now, with such frequent use of this figure in the Scrip- 
tures, we are fully warranted and authorized in applying 
it to whatever in this mysterious passage may require it, 
in order to yield an intelligible sense. And it is a matter 
of thankfulness that, for such application of it here, we 
have the authority of two of the greatest names in the 
whole history of the church. For St. Augustine, inter- 
preting the words, “ Behold, the man has become as one 
of us,” says: “God does not concede that man had become 
like himself; but He upbraids him with his failure. ... 
Not only did man not become that to which he aspired, 
but he lost that [likeness of God] in which he had been 


their servants. Literally interpreted, therefore, the parable is manifestly 
and grossly untrue to nature, whilst absolute truth to nature is one of the 
most distinguishing and beautiful traits of all the other parables of our 
Lord. 2. There is absolutely nothing in the conduct of this steward which 
properly can be commended, or held up as a model for imitation; least of 
all, that which has been commonly supposed, namely, his prudence, or 
foresight. For there is no more of these qualities here than in any other 
case in which an agent defrauds his principal, and is caught in the act. 
This superlative fool, who is too lazy to work and too proud to beg, has 
not wit enough to conceal his roguery—it is all found out—nor ean it be 


supposed that either he, or his joint-conspirators, were allowed to retain ° 


the fruits of their roguery, after it was all detected. N ow, what wisdom, 
or prudence, or foresight is discernible in all this more than in any other 
ease of transparent and detected fraud? 8. The words, as properly ren- 
dered in the authorized version, are: “‘ And I say unto you, Make to your- 
selves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when ye fail they 
may receive you into everlasting habitations.” Now, when shall the dis- 
ciples of Christ fail? When shall they have need of anything that the 
mammon of unrighteousness can supply them with? And where did the 
mammon of unrighteousness get everlasting habitations to give them? 
These questions necessarily arise out of the literal interpretation of these 
words, and they admit of no rational answer. 4. But if the parable be 
interpreted by the figure of solemn irony, all these difficulties vanish, and 
the whole clears up at once. For thus we have, as the true sense of the 
words, “And the Lord commended the unjust steward, because he had 
done wisely ; for the children of this world are wiser in their generation 
than the children of light,” the following: Surely your Lord will commend 
you for unfaithfulness in matters of trust, if you can conceive it possible 


ee 


THE EXPULSION FROM PARADISE 213 


created.” Each of these statements necessarily implies 
that Augustine understood the words in an ironical sense. 
Venerable Bede, also, or Beeda, as it seems we must now 
call him, expressly declares that he so understood them. 
For, after giving the above citations from Augustine, he 
quotes and comments as follows: ‘“ ‘Behold, Adam has 
become as one of us,’ just as the apostle, where he says: 
‘Forgive me this wrong,’ certainly means to be understood 
in the contrary sense.” ‘Thus interpreted, the true sense 
of these words may be given in the following paraphrase : 
Behold how man has attained the object of his insane aspi- 
ration to become equal to us in ability to discern between 
good and evil by his own wisdom, and that, by committing 
sin, which has defaced and well-nigh destroyed our like- 


that any master should praise his servant for such roguery as this! And 
it will be wise for you to imitate this rogue’s example, if it be so, that the 
children of darkness are wiser in their evil generation than the children of 
light, who are guided by the wisdom which is from above! 5. But the 
crowning proof of the irony of the parable lies in the application which 
the Lord himself makes of it, where, dropping the figure lest He should 
be misunderstood, He proceeds to warn his disciples, in the most direct 
and pointed manner, against this unjust steward’s example, and to hold it 
up to utter reprobation. For, in palpable reference to his folly, no less 
than to his iniquity, He now declares: “He that is unjust in the least is 
unjust also in much. If, therefore, ye have not been faithful in the un- 
righteous mammon [as this man was not], who shall commit to your trust 
the true riches? [%. e. the everlasting habitations]. And if ye have not 
been faithful in that which is another man’s [as this steward was not], 
who shall give you that which is your own?... Ye cannot serve God 
and mammon.” Thus we see that this much misunderstood parable, as 
interpreted by the Lord himself, holds up the character and conduct of 
the steward, who was no less fool than rogue, as the very opposite of true 
wisdom, and as, in every respect, to be reprobated and abhorred—that it 
was not spoken to recommend prudence or foresight, but against that cove- 
tousness or greed of worldly wealth which is the parent of all breaches of 
trust, and of all forms of cheating and stealing. 6. Finally, this interpre- 
tation is abundantly confirmed by what is immediately added: ‘ And the 
Pharisees who were covetous heard all these things, and they derided Him.” 
For they plainly perceived that the parable was spoken against them. 
And this led Him to follow them up with another, that of the Rich Man 
and Lazarus, which is directed against the same earthly and sensual 
greed. 


214 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


ness in his soul! This figure governs, also, the interpre- 
tation of the words which immediately follow: “ And, 
now, lest he put forth his hand, and take of the tree of 
life, and eat, and live forever.” For although it has been 
supposed by some that this tree contained a physical virtue 
by which the natural life of man would have been indefi- 
nitely prolonged, so that death would have been unknown, 
yet, as he certainly did not obtain the incommunicable 
power of independent ‘discrimination and choice between 
good and evil by eating of the forbidden tree, so it is ra- 
tionally inconceivable that he could have attained to im- 
mortality in sin and guilt by eating of the tree of life. 
Hence these words also must be taken in an ironical sense, 
as expressive of God’s view of man’s unutterable folly, in 
that he had forfeited his immortality, so that not even the 
tree of life could restore it. Nor is this inconsistent with 
what immediately follows: “Therefore the Lord God sent 
him forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground from 
whence he was taken.” For this word “Therefore” in 
the Hebrew is simply the conjunction “ And;” in fact, it 
ought to have been so rendered here. But if the present 
rendering be retained, which it may bear, it connects what 
follows, not with the words which immediately precede it, 
but with the whole previous transaction of the sin and fall 
of man, for which, evidently, as the all-controlling reason, 
he was expelled from the blissful abode of his innocence, 
Further, it is to be observed, that the paradise in which 
our first parents had hitherto lived, and which had been 
to them the symbol and outward reflection of their inno- 
cent and happy life, could not be a suitable abode for their 
sinful nature, upon which had come the judgments of 
labor and sorrow and death. From this they must needs 
be excluded; and it was even more necessary that they 
should now be prohibited from eating of that sacred tree 
which was the sacrament and symbol of their obedience by 
their own agency to the authoritative guidance of the wis- 


THE EXPULSION FROM PARADISE PART 


dom of God, not lest they should thereby attain to immor- 
tality in sin, which is inconceivable, but because they had 
forfeited forever all claim to the blessings which it repre- 
sented, and, for them to touch it with their polluted hands, 
would be a profanation of holy things. Also, they needed 
to be powerfully instructed and admonished that their life 
of innocence, now lost, could never be recovered ; that it 
would be worse than in vain for them to linger around 
that tree, longing to retrace their steps and to undo what 
could never be undone; that they must now go forth into 
a world full of thorns and thistles, and must submit them- 
selves to all the evils which they have brought upon them- 
selyes by their sin, in order that they may learn by bitter 
experience how inadequate to distinguish between good 
and evil is the guide of life which they have chosen, and 
may have their minds wholly turned to that new way of 
being saved from their sins which has been symbolically 
opened before them in the sacrifice of the innocent animals, 
in whose skins they have now been clothed by the hand of 
God. In these considerations we must find the true reasons 
for what is expressed in the words: “And the Lord God 
sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground 
from whence he was taken: and He drove out the man, 
and placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubim and 
a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way 
of the tree of life.” 

The question now comes before us, what is there in all 
this which is of universal significance? What are the 
truths for man as such which are here represented or 
symbolized ? 

Let us observe, then, that the life of man hitherto had 
been one of perfect innocence by the obedience of his own 
agency, in which he was fully justified by the works of the 
law to which he was amenable. But now that life was 
lost, so that it could never be recovered. For innocence, 
once lost, can never be restored, because it consists in never 


216 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


having sinned. The saints in glory, who “have washed 
their robes and made them white in the blood of the 
Lamb,” are not and never can become innocent, for it 
can never be true that they have not sinned. Hence the 
truth for man as such which is here symbolized is, that 
he can never regain his lost spiritual life by the obedi- 
ence of his own agency—can never again be justified by 
his works under the Divine law. That way of life is for- 
ever closed up against him, and all his efforts in that 
direction must forever prove worse than in vain. 

The principal reasons why this is so are the following : 
First, that which has just been given, namely, that, in 
the nature of the case, innocence, once lost, can never be 
regained. The second is, that sin, as elsewhere we -have 
seen, requires an atonement in which the innocent must 
suffer for the guilty, and which self-evidently the sinner 
cannot make for his own sins. But this truth has been 
sufficiently exhibited in previous connections, and need not 
be further developed here. The third reason is, that sin 
defiles, perverts, depraves, corrupts and renders diseased 
the moral nature and faculties of the sinner, and thus 
vitiates all his subsequent agency, so that he is no longer 
capable of rendering thereby an acceptable obedience to the 
Divine law. It defiles the inmost spiritual nature of the 
agent himself, which is the source of all his acts, whether 
of thought, affection, or will, and thus defiles all the 
streams which flow from this fountain. It perverts the 
nature of the vine, and hence all the branches and fruits 
of the vine are perverted. It: corrupts the heart out of 
which are the issues of life, and hence the whole life is 
corrupted. It paralyzes the spiritual will, which is the 
inmost centre of personality, and hence all that depends 
upon the will is vitiated. And it blinds the intellect to 
the discernment and knowledge of invisible, supersensual, 
spiritual and Divine things, whence it becomes filled with 
errors and delusions. In fine, this reflex influence of sin, 


THE EXPULSION FROM PARADISE ue 


as we have seen, renders the sinner, left to his own agency, 
ever more and more sinful; it originates a progress in cor- 
ruption which, left to itself, naturally runs on forever. 

Now, whatever metaphysical objection may be urged 
against. this doctrine of sin, there is no doubt but. that 
it is perfectly Scriptural. For everywhere in the 
Word it is either assumed, or explicitly taught, that sin 
is not that alone which depends upon the sinner’s own 
moral actions, and for which he is personally and individ- 
ually responsible. This notion connects itself with an 
undue and over-development of the principle of individ- 
ualism in modern times. It leaves out of view the sub- 
stantial unity of human nature, and the organic relations 
of individuals with each other in families, communities, 
nations and the race itself, whereby children become par- 
takers of the good and evil of their parents, and all men 
of the sin which originated in him from whom they are 
descended. Consequently, it does not exhaust the Scrip- 
tural conception of sin, which represents it as an inher- 
ited spiritual disease, a malady, a poison, such that it is 
not forgiveness alone which the sinful soul needs, though 
that be indispensable, but also spiritual healing, the resto- 
ration of the health of the soul. For Christ represents 
himself, not only as expiating human guilt, and obtaining 
forgiveness for men, but also as the great and only Physi- 
cian of the soul. Thus, in the words which He applies 
to himself: “They that be whole need not a physician, 
but they that are sick.” Also His miracles of physical 
healing have always been recognized as symbols and mani- 
festations of His vocation and power to heal the soul of the 
malady of sin. 

This doctrine of sin runs through the whole Scripture 
from beginning to end, and is often expressed, as in such 
passages as the following: “Behold, I was shapen in 
iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me... Who 
can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one.” 

10 


918 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


But it stands out most prominently, as might be expected, 
in the writings of the apostle Paul, from which a multi- 
tude of statements in proof might be cited, many of which 
admit of no other intelligible meaning. Among these are 
the following: “By one man sin entered into the world, 
and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for 
that all have sinned. For until the law sin was in the 
world, but sin is not imputed where there is no law. 
Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even 
over them that had not sinned after the similitude of 
Adam's transgression. .. By one man’s offense death reigned. 
... Through the offense of one many be dead...In Adam 
all die... By the offense of one judgment came upon all 
men unto condemnation... By one man’s disobedience 
many were made sinners...I was alive without the law 
once, but when the commandment came sin revived, and I 
died... Sin taking occasion by the commandment deceived 
me, and by it slew me...wrought in me all manner of 
concupiscence.” Now it seems impossible fairly to inter- 
pret such declarations as these without recognizing that 
what is here called “sin” is a moral corruption in the 
agent himself which lies back of all his moral actions, and 
from which they all do proceed. 

This last reason, if there were no other, is enough to 
evince that it is utterly impossible for the sinner to be jus- 
tified by his own works, to return to spiritual life, to secure 
his own salvation, by his own agency. Man cannot save 
himself. The delusion that this is somehow possible is the 
heart and substance of that which St. Paul so strenuously 
combats under the form of justification by the works of the 
law: and he is thus strenuous and impassioned, because it is 
one of the hardest of all things for the sinner to become 
convinced that, although some of his sins may be “more 
heinous in the sight of God than others,” it is impossible 
for him, in his own strength, to do anything which is not 
tainted and defiled with sin, or which does not bring him 


THE EXPULSION FROM PARADISE 919 


still more under the Divine displeasure. Yet it is indis- 
pensable to his salvation that he should be brought to de- 
spair of his ownagency. For without this he remains blind 
to the knowledge of what that is from which he needs to be 
saved, and of what salvation truly is. Hence he looks to 
Christ as having procured forgiveness for him, rather than 
as his Saviour from sin itself. He thinks that, if he will 
do about as well as he can, the Lord will forgive him for 
matters of human infirmity wherein he may come short 
of his whole duty. But as well might one whose vitals a 
cancer is eating away be satisfied with a surgeon who re- 
moves some of its branches, or mitigates its symptoms, and 
tells him that he will forgive him the operation necessary 
to eradicate it from his system. Such forgiveness can do 
him no good—the disease wi!1 destroy him all the same. 
Also, in this delusion, the sinner is always striving to 
excuse himself, to convince himself and others that he js 
not so very much to blame. As well might he try to 
excuse himself for having taken poison—such excuses can 
give him no relief—what he needs is an antidote, Excuse, 
or even pardon itself for all his transgressions, though an- 
nounced to him by the voice of God from heaven , cannot 
benefit him in the least without the reconciliation of his 
heart to God in love, and the purification and renovation 
of his spiritual nature—without the restoration of the per- 
fect image of God in his soul. And whenever such for- 
giveness becomes the chief object of desire and seeking, to 
the exclusion of deliverance from sin itself, it is made an 
idol which can hardly fail to bring its deluded worshipper 
“to shame and everlasting contempt.” 

Until the sinner is brought to despair of his own agency, 
to feel that he is indeed “without strength,” and is thus 
emptied of self-righteousness and self-trust, which is only 
another word for self-conceit, he is always lingering at the 
gate of paradise, from which he has been irrecoverabl y 
expelled, striving in vain to re-enter it, to return to the 


220 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


tree of life, that he may save himself by eating of its fruit. 
Hence he is in no wise prepared, or in a state of mind in 
which it is possible for him to receive that new life which 
is already prepared for him, and which is exhibited to our 
faith in such declarations as the following: “The Lord 
our righteousness....In the Lord have I righteousness , 
and strength.... Ye are in Christ who has been made 
unto us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctifi- 
cation and redemption. ... Christ is in you.... The riches 
of the glory of this mystery.... which is Christ in you 
the hope of glory.... Ye are the temple of the living God. 
... The Spirit of God dwelleth in you....I am the vine, 
ye are the branches.... Ye are the body of Christ... . If 
any man have not the spirit of Christ he is none of 
His.... He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit 
[with Him]....Itis God which worketh in you both to 
will and todo of His good pleasure.... Because I live 
ye shall live also....1 can do all things through Christ 
which strengtheneth me....It is not I that live, but 
Christ that liveth in me.” 

Now the spiritual life which is represented in a vast 
multitude of such Scriptures as these is different from, and 
immeasurably exalted above that of man’s original inno- 
cence ; wherein we have, in part at least, the fulfilment of 
the declaration: “Where sin abounded, grace did much 
more abound.” For that life of innocence depended upon 
man’s own agency, in which he was created mutable and 
fallible, so that it could be, as it was, forfeited and lost : 
whereas this new life depends not at all upon the fallibility 
of man’s discernment between good and evil, nor upon the 
mutability of his will. That way of life was tried with 
man in his estate of innocence, and even then it failed ; much 
more would it fail now in his fallen and sinful state. The 
simple guidance of the wisdom of God in choosing between 
good and evil, having proved itself insufficient in such 
favorable circumstances, must needs prove much more in- 


THE EXPULSION FROM PARADISE 991 


sufficient now that to follow this guidance man has no 
strength, no will, no desire. Now he needs a wisdom, a 
susceptibility, a will, a strength—in one word, an agency 
—which is not his own, yet united to, revealed in, 
and become one with his own agency, to choose and 
obey in and for him. Consequently, this new life 
is made to depend essentially upon the wisdom and 
will, the obedience and righteousness—the agency—of 
Christ in man, wherein He is infallible and immutable, 
so that this life can never be forfeited nor lost. For it is 
Christ in man who chooses and obeys for him, of which 
man’s obedience, whether of thought, affection, volition, 
or act, is the consequence, fruit and manifestation. Thus 
it is that the Christ of God brings into man his own all- 
perfect and “everlasting righteousness.” 

Here, now, we have brought out the grand significance 
of the “new covenant,” as distinguished from that rela- 
tion to God under which man lived in innocence, and from 
all forms and stages of the legal dispensation inaugu- 
rated through the mediation of Moses. It is to this that 
David refers in his last words as follows: “ He hath made 
an everlasting covenant with me ordered in all things and 
sure;” and this is the meaning of a vast multitude of 
other Scriptural deliverances, such as the following: “TI 
will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure 
mercies of David....I will make an everlasting covenant 
with them, that I will not turn away from them to do them 
good.... not according to the covenant which I made with 
their fathers... which my covenant they brake, although 
I was a husband unto them, saith the Lord.... But I will 
forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no 
more.... 1 will put my law in their inward parts, and 
write it in their hearts....and they shall not depart 
from me....And I will be their God, and they shall be 
my people.... Wherein God, willing more abundantly 
to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his 


222 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


counsel, confirmed it by an oath.... And because He could 
swear by none greater, He sware by himself.... That by 
two immutable things [His promise and oath] in which 
it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong 
consolation who have fled for refuge to the hope set before 
us.” Then, as if He could never say enough to establish 
the certainty of these promises of His new covenant, He 
compares them to the unchangeableness and stability of his 
ordinances and laws in the natural world. In fine, we 
must understand that it was in full view of all these 
promises and counsels of God that our Lord instituted 
the sacrament of the Holy Supper, saying, “This cup is 
the new covenant in my blood which is shed for you; do 
you all drink of it.” 

Thus it appears that what renders this new life unchange- 
ably secure to all “the heirs of promise,” is what has been 
called “the mystical union” of their souls with the Lord 
Jesus Christ. What, then, we must inquire here, is the 
nature of this union? or although it is one of the most 
profound and inscrutable mysteries of the gospel, yet we 
must form some conception of it, however inadequate, in 
order that it should become an object of our faith. 

In answer to this question, there can be no doubt but 
that this mystical union between the Divine and the 
human is typically represented by the incarnation, in which 
God was manifested in the flesh, and became one with 
man, in the person of Jesus Christ. For believing souls 
become what they are in and through Him, ‘that in all 
things He may have the pre-eminence ;’ and He is their 
elder brother, which includes the truth, that He is of 
the same species, or oneness of life with them, in which 
sense it is written: “In all things, it behoved Him to be 
made like unto his brethren.” Hence, as He is “the Son 
of God,” so are they “sons of God” in and through Him ; 
as He partakes of the Divine nature, so are they “ par- 
takers of a Divine nature” in Him; as He is one with 


THE EXPULSION FROM PARADISE vars 


God, so are they one with God in Him, in the sense that 
“he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit” [with 
Him]; and as “in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the 
Godhead bodily,” so are they “ filled with all the fulness 
of God” in Him. In fact, almost every expression which 
is used in the Scriptures to characterize Him is applied to 
His people as partakers of and one with Him. 

This makes it necessary, in order to reach anything like 
a true conception of this union, that we should here un- 
dertake to formulate a Scriptural conception of the mysti- 
cal person of Christ; and for this purpose we must take 
into consideration some things which, at first sight, may 
seem to be remote from the subject. 

Let us direct our attention, then, to the obvious fact, that 
all things which are known to us exist in an ascending 
series, one rising above another, in ever-increasing com- 
plexity and dignity of nature, until we come at last to that 
noblest and most exalted manifestation of the power and 
glory of God, “the man Christ Jesus.” This series com- 
mences, at the lowest term, with matter pure and simple, 
howsoever matter may be defined, or whatever conception 
of it may be formed. Next above this, we have the vege- 
table, which is of a higher degree of complexity and dig- 
nity, inasmuch as it is composed of matter with all its 
properties and laws, together with something of a more 
exalted nature, namely, the principle of vegetable life, 
whatever that may be, so that these two are combined in 
the unity of one and the same superior existence. At 
the next stage we have the animal, which is of a still 
higher degree of complexity and dignity, being composed 
of all that there is in the vegetable, z. e., matter and plant- 
life, together with something still superior, namely, the 
principle of animal life, including capacities of pleasure 
and pain, a certain form of consciousness, and sume of the 
lower mental faculties, so that these two become one in the 
unity of the same creature. Next above the mere animal, 


224 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


in this scale of being, is man, as he came from the hands 
of his Maker, and as he still exists, in whom we have a 
yet higher degree of complexity and dignity. For man 
contains in himself the whole animal nature—its senses, 
capacities, faculties, appetites and passions—in union with 
a human soul endowed with reason and free-will, capable 
of the distinction between right and wrong, of the knowl- 
edge of God, of the spiritual world, and of immortality, 
so that these two are one in the unity of the self-same con- 
scious being. The crowning term of the series, involving 
the highest degree of complex existence and dignity’ of 
nature, is that of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom we 
must conceive as constituted by the mystical union of God 
with man in one personality and consciousness, according 
to the preceding analogies in nature, namely, those of the 
union of vegetable life with matter, of the animal with the 
vegetable, and of the human soul with the animal. 

Thus we see that, according to this orthodox conception 
of the person of Christ, He belongs, in a certain sense, to 
the order of nature, so that, if there had been no such 
being, the Divine idea which underlies and governs the 
whole creation would have remained incomplete and un- 
fulfilled. Nor is this conception more orthodox than 
Scriptural. For it rests upon a vast induction of state- 
ments and facts, which, without it, are incapable of being 
comprehended in harmony with each other. Among these 
are the following: 1. In the sacred Word there are con- 
stantly ascribed to Christ all those names, titles, attributes, 
works and worship, which, as everywhere represented, it 
is impious sacrilege to ascribe to any other but the one 
only living and true God. His prophetic name is “Im- 
manuel, which being interpreted is, God-with-us.” He is 
called “the mighty God, the Father of eternity.” He 
himself claims to ‘do the works, and to be honored with 
the honor of his Father’; and His miracles were such as 
could be wrought by no other but the power of God. 


THE EXPULSION FROM PARADISE 995 


Now, all this is incomprehensible with any other concep- 
tion of Him than that of His essential and supreme 
divinity. 2. In closest connection with these statements, 
it stands recorded that He was born of a woman; that He 
“increased in wisdom and stature”; that He ate, drank, 
and slept; that He was tempted to sin; that He wept, 
suffered and died: all which-is incomprehensible with any 
other conception of Him than that of His true and proper 
humanity. Hence the necessity of a more general concep- 
tion which shall combine these two in one; and the only 
such conception which is possible to the human mind is 
that which we reach through the preceding analogies of 
the union of diverse elernents in the same forms of com- 
plex existence; namely, that Christ was both God and 
man, in the full consciousness of both these elements of 
His personality. Nor is there in all this even the appear- 
ance of an inconsistency. 38. Accordingly, we find Him 
in the gospel record constantly manifesting this dual con- 
sciousness both of His Divine and of His human natures, 
as entering into the constitution of His one and indivisible 
personality. Thus He expresses his God-consciousness in 
a multitude of such declarations as the following: “I and 
my Father are one.... Before Abraham was I am”; and 
in all His miracles : also He expresses His consciousness of 
being a man in all such as these: “Of that day and hour 
knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heayen, 
neither the Son, but my Father only.... Ye seek to kill 
me, a man that hath told you the truth”; and in all His 
merely human actions. At the same time, He uses the 
personal pronoun I, as representing and expressing the indi- 
visible unity of His person and consciousness, the one sub- 
ject of both these different classes of acts and experiences, 
alike with respect to those which proceed from His divin- 
ity and those which proceed from His humanity. He says, 
I do this, alike when He is working the most stupendous 
miracles, and when He is talking or eating with his disci- 
10* 


226 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


ples, or walking the streets of Jerusalem. Nor should 
this seem strange to us, since we have in our own expe- 
rience what enables us to comprehend it. For wealso have 
a similar dual consciousness from the fact, that we are 
similarly constituted of two diverse elements, namely, of 
both a material and a spiritual nature, in consequence of 
which we say, I feel hunger, thirst, physical pain and 
pleasure, all which have their seat in, and proceed from 
our material nature; and, I feel remorse, reverence, awe, 
love to God, and the assurance of immortality, all which 
belong exclusively to our spiritual nature. Thus we ex- 
press our consciousness that what we designate by the 
personal pronoun I, namely, our personality, which is the 
subject of both these classes of diverse experiences, is one 
and indivisible. 4, Sametimes, moreover, one form of this 
dualism seems to predominate in the consciousness of 
Christ, and sometimes the other, which also we are enabled 
to comprehend from our own experience. For we may be 
in such an agony of physical pain as to overshadow and 
almost, or quite, extinguish the consciousness of our spirit- 
ual and immortal nature, and we may be in such rapture 
of spiritual exaltation and vision of spiritual things that 
the objects of sense will disappear, and physical pain, how- 
ever severe, will cease to be felt. The saints and martyrs 
appear to have experienced this latter state, what time they 
were “in the spirit,” and ‘heard unspeakable words which 
it was not lawful for a man to utter, not knowing whether 
they were in or out of the body,’ and when they stood in 
the midst of the flames with radiant countenances. Thus, 
also, our Lord seems to express only the consciousness of 
His Divine nature in the scenes of His transfiguration, and 
in the words already referred to: “Before Abraham was I 
am”; whilst this Divine consciousness seems to be over- 
shadowed, and thrown into the back-ground, by that of 
his feeble, dependent and suffering humanity, as expressed 
in the words: “My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto 


THE EXPULSION FROM PARADISE 997 


death”, and when, in the agony of the cross, He cried 
out, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” 

Now, this discernment of the person of Christ, in 
whom His people are typically represented, will enable us 
to comprehend, at least in an equal degree, the mystery 
of their union with God in Him. We must observe, how- 
ever, that it is expressed in different ways, as being with 
Christ immediately, or mediately through the indwelling 
of His Holy Spirit. Sometimes these two ideas are given 
separately, as in the words: “If the Spirit of Him that 
raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised 
up Christ from the dead shall quicken your mortal bodies 
also through that Spirit which dwelleth in you.... Know 
ye not your own selves [Are ye so ignorant of what ye 
yourselves are as not to know] how that Christ is in you, 
except ye be reprobates.” In other passages they seem to 
be synthesized, as in the following case: “Ye are not in the 
flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God 
dwell in you. Now, if any man have not the Spirit of 
Christ, he is none of His: and if the Spirit of Christ be 
in you, the body is dead unto sin, but the Spirit is life 
unto righteousness.” In fact these two forms of expres- 
sion are hardly distinguishable from each other as to their 
practical significance ; and they may easily be combined in 
one conception, namely, that of the union of the soul with 
the Holy Spirit, and thereby with Christ himself, to whom 
that Spirit was given without measure. ‘Thus, as the 
natural or Adamic man is constituted by the vital union 
of the animal nature with a human soul, so we must con- 
ceive of the new or spiritual man as constituted in his per- 
sonality by the vital union of the Spirit of God and of 
Christ with his soul, so that these two become one, as the 
branches are one with the vine, as the members of a 
human body are one with their head, and as the body itself 
is one with its soul. 

Further, this union is copiously illustrated in the Scrip- 


228 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


tures by various images and analogies, such as those which 
have just been referred to. One of these is that of mar- 
riage, where the church is represented as “the Bride, the 
Lamb’s wife...adorned for her husband ;” and as in the 
words of St. Paul: “The husband is the head of the wife, 
even as Christ is the head of the church. Therefore, as 
the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to 
their own husbands. ... Husbands, love your Wives, even 
as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it... . 
For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his 
bones. ... This is a great mystery; but I speak concerning 
Christ and the church.” Now this image is frequently 
employed in the Old Testament to exhibit the relation 
which then subsisted between God and his people; for 
which reason, and because it represents important practical 
consequences, it seems to have been carried over into the 
new dispensation. But inasmuch as it is common to both 
dispensations, we shall find it altogether inadequate to set 
forth the final perfection of that oneness of Christ with his 
people which is consummated in and through his incarna- 
tion, and the indwelling in them of His Holy Spirit in such 
fulness as was never before known. For such expression 
of it, we must look mainly to those analogies which are 
peculiar to the New Testament. 

The first of these is given us in the words of the 
Lord; “Iam the true vine:...ye are the branches... 
Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear 
fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can ye 
except ye abide in me..,. He that abideth in me and I in 
him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. For without 
me ye can do nothing.” All this is very significant. For 
the life of the branches is not only similar to, and derived 
from, but it is numerically and identically one and. the 
same with that of the vine, which implies that this union 
between Christ and his people is such that their spiritual 
life is not barely similar to, and derived from, but that it 


THE EXPULSION FROM PARADISE 999 


is altogether one and the same with His life. The very 
life of Christ itself flows into and lives in them. Hence 
the force of his reasoning in that peculiar form of expres- 
sion: “ Because I live ye shall live also.” 

Another of these analogies is contained in the union 
which subsists between the human head and its body, as 
in the statements: “The head of every man is Christ.... 
Christ is the head of the church, and himself is the Saviour 
of the body....And He hath given Him to be the head 
over all things to the church, which is His body, the fulness 
of Him that filleth all in all.’ Still another is that of the 
union of the body with its members: “ For as the body is 
one and hath many members, and all the members of the 
body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ.... Now 
ye are the body of Christ, and. members in particular.” 
Both of these images are frequently employed, and to the 
development and application of them St. Paul devotes the 
whole of a long chapter in his first epistle to the Corin- 
thians. They exhibit the same unity of life in Christ and 
his people which is so graphically pictured in that of the 
vine and its branches; and, therefore, we may pass them 
without further comment, in order to consider more par- 
ticularly that which is to follow. 

For there is yet another image to which we must give 
special attention, namely, that of the union of the soul and 
body, as contained in the words: “ There is one Spirit and 
one body,” and in all those passages which have been suf- 
ficiently exhibited in the examples previously cited, in 
which-the Lord’s people are represented as His body, and 
He as their indwelling and animating Spirit. The signifi- 
cance of these becomes apparent when we consider that, as 
the human body is not so solid or dense as to exclude the. 
soul from any of its organs or members, so the very sub- 
stance of the soul itself is not so dense or solid but that, in 
all its faculties and their functions, it can be permeated, 
animated, inspired and actuated by the Spirit of God. 


250 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


And this is just what takes place in this mystical union 
between Christ and His people. What the soul is to the 
body of the natural man, Christ is to the soul of the spirit- 
ual man; as the soul in the body, so Christ in the soul. 
This is true of all the different faculties or powers of the 
soul, so that when the union is perfected, it becomes “ filled 
with all the fulness of God.” 1. Thus, the intellectual 
faculties are illuminated with the knowledge and wisdom 
of Christ, “who is made unto us wisdom from God,” with 
respect to the things of the invisible and spiritual world, 
and, especially, the things which pertain to himself as our 
Saviour. These are no longer dim, shadowy, uncertain, as 
they are to the natural man; but they have now a clear- 
ness and certainty, an all-controlling and life-moulding 
power, unknown before. In fact, all things are now seen, 
not with the man’s own eyes, but, so to speak, through the 
eyes of Christ, in the light in which He sees them, and as 
He represents them in His word. Thus are fulfilled such 
promises and declarations as the following: “The Para- 
clete, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send 
in my name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all 
things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto 
you.... When He, the Spirit of truth, is come,... He shall 
guide you into all the truth.... He shall receive of mine, 
and shall disclose it unto you.... Ye have an anointing 
from the Holy One, and ye know all things. ... The anoint- 
ing which ye have received from Him abideth in you, and 
ye have no need that any one teach you; but as the same 
anointing teacheth you'concerning all things, and is true 
and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, abide ye in 
Him.... We have the mind [vody] of Christ.” 2. In like 
manner, through this union, the spiritual man is made a 
partaker of the susceptibilities and affections of Christ; is 
moved by what moves Him, affected by what affects Him, 
feels as He feels, loves what He loves, and hates what He 
hates; in which sense it is written: “'The love of God is 


THE EXPULSION FROM PARADISE OST 


shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is 
given unto us.... Ye are partakers of the sufferings of 
Christ....I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up 
that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh 
for his body’s sake, which is the church.” 3. In fine, the 
will of Christ unites itself and becomes one with the human 
will, so that the acts of the two, in the degree in which this 
union is perfected, are indistinguishable from each other in 
the consciousness. The man is conscious of his own will, 
as distinct from his Lord’s, in so far only as it is manifested 
in self-assertion and insubordination of the human to the 
Divine. Thus the volitions and actions of the new man 
are literally those of the will of Christ in him. Hence the 
exhortation of the holy apostle: “Work out your own 
salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God which 
worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleas- 
ure.” | 
The practical consequences of this mystical union between 
Christ and our souls cannot be less than of supreme im- 
portance. In fact, our whole salvation, both our justifica- 
tion and sanctification, and “all things which pertain to 
life and godliness,” depend upon and proceed from it. 
With respect to our justification, it has been defined in 
all the reformed communions substantially alike, as “an 
act of God’s free grace, wherein He pardoneth all our sins, 
and accepteth us as righteous in His sight only for the 
righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by 
faith alone ;” and commonly it has been explained in the 
sense that we are regarded and treated as being righteous 
in virtue of Christ’s righteousness imputed to us as if it 
were our own. But this has always been a stumbling- 
block to thoughtful people, who could not help asking, 
how is it conceivable that God, who only sees all things 
as they are, should regard us as being, in point of right- 
eousness, altogether different from what we are? How 
can the righteousness of one be imputed to another, as if 


232 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


it were his own? Now the preceding analogies suggest 
something in our own experience which enables us to 
answer these questions and to solve these difficulties. For 
we do not regard, nor treat, nor even think of a vegetable 
organism with respect to the lower element of its nature, 
the mere matter which enters into its composition, but we 
regard, treat and think of it with reference to the higher 
element of its complex nature—as being truly and prop- 
erly a vegetable. In like manner, we do not treat an 
animal as being in part composed of a vegetable, but alto- 
gether according to the higher element of its nature ; it is 
the object of our thoughts simply as an animal. Nor do 
we think of a man with reference to the animal which he 
contains in himself, but we characterize him by, and treat 
him according to the nobler element of his complex na- 
ture, as a being endowed with reason and free-will. If 
we should do otherwise, we should account ourselves as 
irrational ; for he who treats a man as if he were an animal 
is himself a brute. And, in all this, we think and act 
according to the image or likeness of God in which we are 
created ; for this is just what God does in the matter of 
our justification ; He regards and treats us, not according 
to our lower and sinful nature, but according to ‘the Di- 
vine nature of which we are partakers.’ He does not 
impute sin to us, because this is confined to our lower 
nature; but He imputes to us the merits and righteous- 
ness of Christ, because Christ is in us, and has become one 
with us. He sees only Christ in us because Christ is in us, 
and one with us; which determines our true character and 
standing before Him, just as we see only the vegetable, the 
animal, the man, the nobler and characteristic elements in 
these complex existences. It is only in this way that we 
can comprehend St. Paul where he boldly identifies him- 
self with the new man, and relegates his remaining sinful - 
ness to his flesh, his members, as in the following sublime 
passage: “ For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, 


aa 


THE EXPULSION FROM PARADISE ae 


dwelleth no good thing.... For that which I do, I allow 
not.... But what I hate, that I do.... If, then, I do that 
which I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that 
dwelleth in me.... For I delight in the law of God after 
the inward man; but I see another law in my members 
warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into 
captivity to the law of sin in my members.... So, then, 
with the mind I myself serve the law of God.” Here, 
also, we discern the meaning of those puzzling words of 
the beloved disciple: ‘‘ Whosoever abideth in Him sinneth 
not.... Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin, 
because His seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin, be- 
cause he is born of God.” 

But St. Paul could not rest in mere justification—he still 
regarded himself as chained to a dead body—whilst this 
law of sin remained in his members. Hence he cries out, 
“ O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from 
the body of this death ?” and he answers his own question 
in the words: “I thank God, through Jesus Christ our 
Lord [I shall be delivered].” Here, then, with respect to 
our sanctification, we must observe, that it depends upon, 
and proceeds from, our union with Christ, no less than 
our justification. for it is only through this that ‘ He is 
made unto us righteousness and sanctification and redemp- 
tion.” Thus only are the perfections of His character and 
life reproduced in us, and we become partakers of His 
holiness. Thus, not only do His views of all things be- 
come our views, but His love of the truth becomes love of 
the truth in us; His faith, faith in us; His meekness and 
submission to His Father’s will, meekness and submission 
to the Father’s will in us; His strength to resist tempta- 
tion, strength to resist temptation in us; His obedience and . 
righteousness, obedience and righteousness in us; His un- 
selfishness and self-sacrifice, unselfishness and self-sacrifice 
in us; His love to God and man, love to God and man in 
us; His holiness, holiness in us; and His immortality and 


234 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


glory, immortality and glory in us. Such is the grand 
significance of the declaration which the beloved disciple 
makes in the commencement of his gospel ; “Of his fulness 
have all we received, and grace for grace;” and thus is 
accomplished the glorious object for which He came into 
the world, as stated by the prophet Daniel, “To finish the 
transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make 
reconciliation for inquity, and to bring in everlasting right- 
eousness.” | 

Such, then, is the new relation of the believing soul to 
God in Christ, and such is the immutable security of the 
new life which rests upon and proceeds from it. Hence 
this new life required very different symbols and sacra- 
ments from those which were appropriate to man’s former 
life of innocence and obedience by his own agency in choos- 
ing between good and evil. The tree of the knowledge of 
good and evil and the tree of life, the sacraments of that 
-lost life, would now be altogether inappropriate and mis- 
leading. rom the moment in which he sinned, man must 
look to very different symbols of the way in which only 
it is now possible that he should be saved. In the agony 
and shed blood of the innocent victim, in its flesh con- 
sumed by fire upon the altar of God, in the washing with 
water in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the 
Holy Ghost, in eating and drinking bread and wine as 
emblems of the body and blood of Christ broken and shed 
for him, given unto and received by him, and inseparably 
identified with him—in these symbols he must now find 
represented his spiritual baptism into the death of Christ 
unto sin, and his resurrection unto the new life of Christ 
in him, so that he may be able to say with Paul: “I am 
crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but 
Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the 
flesh is by the faith of the Son of God.” For, in order 
to his reception of this new life, every hope resting on 
the obedience of his own agency must be rooted out of his 


THE EXPULSION FROM PARADISE VO 


heart, otherwise he will not and cannot humble himself 
to receive salvation by the obedience and righteousness of 
another for and in him. It is only upon the crushed 
ruins of his own agency that the temple of this new life 
can be edified in his soul. Hence, when he committed his 
first sin, he was powerfully warned against all attempts 
to return to the life he had irrecoverably lost, by the 
cherubim and flaming sword which were placed at the 
entrance of the garden of Eden “to keep the way of the 
tree of life;” and by that flaming sword must every 
one, from that day to this, who seeks to be justified 
by his own works, to walk by his own light, to obey by 
hts own agency, to live by his own life, be slain and 
consumed. 

Thus, we see, in fine, that the immutable security of 
this new life results from the fact that it does not depend 
on man’s fallible agency in the discrimination and choice 
between good and evil, but on that of Him who has be- 
come one with His people, and whose wisdom cannot err, 
whose faith cannot fail, and whose spiritual strength is 
adequate to all emergencies. And this may enable us to 
understand why it is that, when this symbol of the tree 
of life appears once more at the close of the Apocalyptic 
conflicts—the humanity now saved from all sin—it stands 
in the midst of the New Jerusalem, on the banks of the 
river of life, which flows forth eternally out of the throne 
of God and the Lamb, and there stands beside it no longer, 
as in the paradise of man’s innocence, the tree of the 
knowledge of good and evil. 


XIII 
THE HOLY SABBATH 


And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had 
made: and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which 
He had made: and God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, 
because that in it He had rested from all His work which God 
created and made. 


THE institution of the Sabbath, as here represented in 
the Mosaic record of the creation, has given rise to many 
questions of great and permanent interest, some of which 
hardly admit of answers that can be regarded as altogether 
satistactory. One very serious difficulty is involved in the 
reason here given for the sanctification of the seventh 
day, namely, that in it God rested after His six days’ work 
of creation, which seems to imply that these six days were 
similar in kind and length to the seventh. For otherwise 
how could the seven days be enumerated together without 
a violation of the necessary laws of analytic thought? 
Yet no person of intelligence now believes that the world 
was actually created in six literal days. Here, then, we 
have natural objects, which the sacred writers always rep- 
resented in forms of expression current in their times, so 
interlinked with moral and spiritual truth that it seems 
almost impossible to separate them—the truth itself seems 
to depend upon antiquated conceptions of such objects— 
the institution and sanctification of the Sabbath upon the 
creation of the world in six literal days. Nor does this diffi- 
culty arise from any peculiar views of the relations be- 
tween revelation and science, but it is one which all alike 
must face and deal with as best they can, except such as 

236 


THE HOLY SABBATH 237 


can still believe that God created all things in six days 
each of twenty-four hours’ length; which, to those who 
are at all acquainted with the evidence on the subject, is 
about as easy as it is to believe that the sun revolves around 
the earth, or that the earth itself rests upon the back of 
the great Hindoo tortoise. 

But passing this difficulty, and leaving every one to deal 
with it in his own way, if now we undertake to draw from 
these statements of Moses the moral and spiritual truth 
which they contain, we shall find that it can hardly be less, 
and may be more, than that God blessed and sanctified one 
day in seven on the ground of something in himself which 
is here characterized as His resting after His work of crea- 
tion. Whatsoever of truth more than this may be con- 
tained in the record we leave to be evolved by others who 
have a deeper spiritual insight, for in this one we shall find 
more than we can Pee elucidate. 

Here, then, it seems to be clearly revealed that the oa 
bath is not an institution of a positive, limited, or tem- 
porary character, but that it rests upon or abode a 
moral law, that is, a law of universal and immutable ob- 
ligation. In confirmation of this view we submit the 
following considerations. 

The first of these is that which stands out on the record 
itself, namely, that the Sabbath was instituted at the crea- 
tion of the world, and thus established in the life of the 
first human beings from whom all mankind were to de- 
scend. For we cannot rationally conceive of God’s bless- 
ing and sanctifying a particular day as something which 
He kept secret at the time—which He did not communi- 
cate to those for whom this blessing and sanctification were 
intended: nor can we understand the words, “God blessed 
the seventh day and sanctified it,” otherwise than that He 
commanded it to be kept holy that it might be a blessing. 
Accordingly we have abundant evidence that the division 
of time into weeks of seven days extensively prevailed in 


238 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


the earliest ages—that it was known, not only among the 
Hebrews and other Arabic or Semitic nations, but also 
among the Egyptians, Greeks, Africans, Peruvians, and 
almost or quite all primitive peoples. The Greeks as- 
cribed its origin, as also that of many other traditional 
customs for which they could not otherwise account, to the 
Egyptians. Periods of seven days are mentioned in con- 
nection with the Noachian deluge, both in the Bible and 
in the Assyrian and Babylonian arrowhead inscriptions, 
which last inform us of several interesting particulars on 
this subject which do not appear in the Mosaic record, 
such as that the rain ceased and the ark rested on the sum- 
mit of the mountain both on seventh days. Also they 
afford unequivocal evidence that the Sabbath itself was 
known and reverenced by the ancient Babylonians, and 
that they regarded it as having been established by God 
at the creation of the world.* This division of time was 
certainly known to the patriarchs of Abraham’s family, 
for it is recognized in the account of Jacob’s= marriage 
with Leah and Rachel as something well understood, and 
needing no explanation. In asimilar manner, also, it is 
alluded to in the book of Job, to which an Arabian origin 
and a date anterior to Moses have been probably assigned. 
Moreover, that the Sabbath itself was fully recognized as 
a Divine institution among the Israelites before the deca- 
logue was promulgated is evident from the account which 


* On the fifth tablet of the Chaldean account of the creation we find 
the words: 


On the seventh day He [the Creator] appointed a holy day, 
And to cease from all business He commanded, 


Also in the Babylonian calendar the seventh day is designated as the 
“ Sabbath,”’—the word literally signifying “a day on which it is unlawful 
to work:” and, among other prescribed observances, it appears that the 
king was not allowed to drive in his chariot nor to exercise either his leg- 
islative or military functions on that day. 

See Records of the Past, published under the sanction of the Society of 
Biblical Archeology (British), Vol. vii. page 164; ix. 118. 


THE HOLY SABBATH 239 


is given of the manna. For they were supplied with this 
“‘angel’s food” whilst they were yet in “ the wilderness of 
Sin,’ some time before they came to Mount Sinai; and it 
did not fall on the seventh day, but they were commanded 
to gather a double portion of it on the sixth, the reason 
for which Moses gives in these words: “This is that which 
the Lord hath said, To-morrow is the rest of the holy 
Sabbath: and on the morrow he said: “To-day is a 
Sabbath unto the Lord, to-day ye shall not find it in the 
field.” Notwithstanding, some of them went out to look 
for it on that day, and were severely rebuked for their un- 
belief and disobedience : “And the Lord said unto Moses, 
How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my 
laws? See, for the Lord hath given you the Sabbath, 
therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two 
days: abide ye every man in his place; let no man go out 
of his place on the Sabbath-day.” Also, that it was pre- 
viously known among the children of Israel may be fairly 
inferred from the words with which the fourth command- 
ment begins: “Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it 
holy.” For this expression is in no wise appropriate to 
the promulgation of a new law, nor to the setting up of an 
absolutely new institution. 

Again, the universal and immutable obligation of the 
Sabbath is revealed and enforced by the reason here as- 
signed for its sanctification, which is more fully expressed 
in the command of the decalogue: “Remember the Sab- 
bath-day to keep it holy: six days shalt thou labor and 
do all thy work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the 
Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor 
thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy 
maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is 
within thy gates: for in six days the Lord made heaven 
and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested 
the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath- 
day, and hallowed it.” And this reason is still further 


240 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


unfolded and emphasized in the words: “On the seventh 
day He rested and was refreshed.” Here, indeed, we are 
brought face to face with a Divine mystery—something in 
God which is quite incomprehensible to us. But none the 
less, perhaps all the more, is it a reason for the institution 
and observance of the Sabbath which can never lose its 
force, and is of universal application. For it is not any- | 
thing in man, nor in the times nor countries in which 
his lot may be cast, nor in any other circumstances, in all 
which he is mutable, but it is something in God himself, 
of which ‘His resting and being refreshed’ is the anthro- 
pomorphic yet true expression, and which must remain 
unchangeably the same for all men, in all times, countries, 
and other circumstances. Here, then, we have it revealed 
to our faith that there is something, however mysterious, 
in the nature or attributes of God upon which the Sabbath 
is founded, to which it corresponds, and which it manifests 
to us. Hence, whatever force or validity this reason had 
for the people of Israel in the time of Moses it must 
have had from the creation of man upon the earth, and 
ever since, and must continue to have in all future times 
for all mankind. Until that shall cease to be true which 
is signified by God’s resting after He had finished His 
work of creation, the obligation to keep holy the day which 
He has appointed to commemorate His rest, which is 
founded on and arises out of it, can never cease—not even 
in heaven, where, as we are expressly informed in the New 
Testament, “there remaineth [with whatsoever modifica- 
tions from different circumstances] a Sabbath-keeping to 
_the people of God.” 

A third consideration which we cannot pass lightly over 
is, that the ordinance of the Sabbath is one of the ten 
great commandments which were spoken by the voice of 
God himself out of the midst of cloud and flame on the 
summit of Mount Sinai, and which He wrote with His 
own finger on tables of stone for a perpetual memorial. 


THE HOLY SABBATH 241 


We must now endeavor to elucidate the significance of 
these facts. 

For what reason, then, are we to understand that these 
commandments were distinguished in such a remarkable 
manner from all the rest of the Mosaic law? The ne- 
cessary and obvious answer is, for their superior importance. 
They were not communicated through the intervention or 
mediation of any created being, howsoever plenarily in- 
spired, but were spoken by the mouth of God himself in 
thunder-words to the many thousands of Israel assembled 
at the foot of the mountain, to signify their paramount 
importance, as being a transcription from, and an immediate 
expression of the nature and character of God, in whose 
image or likeness man had been created, and consequently 
as being of universal and immutable obligation, in order 
that by keeping them he might be conformed to the char- 
acter of his Maker. And still further to symbolize, rep- 
resent, express and enforce the truth, that their obligation 
could never cease, that they could never be superseded by 
any future revelation or higher law, they were written by 
the finger of God on tablets of stone, the most imperishable 
and unchangeable of all material which could be employed 
for this purpose. The other portions of the Mosaic law 
were not so delivered, but were communicated through the 
mediation of Moses, and were recorded on perishable ma- 
terials, such as papyrus, the leaf of a plant, which was the 
paper then in use, to signify that they were not of equal 
importance—were not of immutable and universal obliga- 
tion, but were binding on the people of Israel alone, and 
on them only for a time—that they were destined to be 
superseded and done away by a subsequent and more com- 
plete revelation. Such is the plain and obvious significance 
of this distinction between the decalogue and the rest of the 
law, in the mode of their delivery and in the material on 
which they were recorded. 

This view of the duties enjoined in the decalogue is il- 


242 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


lustrated and confirmed when we consider them in par- 
ticular. For in them God prohibits the worship of false 
gods, idolatry, Sabbath-breaking, profane swearing, false 
witness-bearing, dishonoring of parents, adultery, murder, 
theft and covetousness, and enjoins the opposites of these as 
duties which we owe to Himand toeach other. Nowall these, 
unless the Sabbath be an exception, are undeniably matters 
of universal and immutable obligation, and essential to 
human welfare alike in all times, places and circumstances. 
There has never been any dispute upon this point, but they 
have been universally regarded as embodying the unchange- 
able principles of morality—principles which do not even 
depend upon the will of God, except as His will is the ex- 
pression of His all-perfect moral character and holy nature, 
which is the ultimate standard of eternal righteousness. 
With all reverence be it said, God himself cannot make it 
right for His moral creatures to violate any of these laws, 
unless that of the Sabbath be an exception, for this would 
require Him to deny His own nature from which they are 
transcribed. Can He make it right for any one to dis- 
honor and abuse his own parents? Can He make adultery 
or murder right? No one in his senses can believe it— 
and so of all the rest. 

Now, since all the other commandments of the decalogue 
are thus demonstrably of immutable obligation, the question 
arises, if that of the Sabbath be of a totally different char- 
acter, for what conceivable reason was it placed among 
them, spoken with them. by the voice of God from the 
summit of Mount Sinai, and inscribed by His own hand 
upon tables of stone? If it was to be obligatory upon 
none but the children of Israel, and on them only fora 
time, why was it not communicated to them through the 
mediation of their human legislator along with the other 
precepts of that law which was destined to be superseded 
and abolished by a subsequent and more perfect revelation? 
It may be safely affirmed that no rational answer ever has 


THE HOLY SABBATH 243 


been, or ever can be, given to this question; and the in- 
evitable conclusion is, that the law of the Sabbath was re- 
garded by Him who delivered it as of the same character 
with the rest of the ten commandments, as transcribed from 
His own immutable nature, as of permanent and universal 
obligation, and as equally with them essential to the well- 
being and happiness of mankind. He who thinks other- 
wise is bound in reason to give a satisfactory answer to the 
question which has just been asked, as, also, it has been 
well observed, to do three other things: 1. ‘To show 
where the same authority by which the fourth command- 
ment was enjoined and engraved on the stone tablet has 
abrogated or revoked it ; 2. To show that no other of the ten : 
or if any other which, or why this one alone, has been an- 
nulled and erased; 3. To reform his own and the lan- 
guage of Christendom which has prevailed for two thousand 
years, so that we shall no more speak of the decalogue, or 
ten commandments, since, upon this supposition, there are 
only nine.’ Nor is it any objection to this conclusion that 
the Sabbath is frequently spoken of as a sign between God 
and His peculiar people by which they were placed under 
special obligations to serve Him ; for, ina precisely similar 
manner, their deliverance from Egyptian bondage is given 
as a reason why they should keep all His commandments, 
but it does not follow from this that other people are under 
no similar obligation. 

We are now prepared to consider our Lord’s deliverances 
on this subject, and to appreciate their true significance. 
For it has been maintained—and it seems to be a common 
opinion—that he by his Divine authority greatly relaxed 
its rigor, if he did not virtually abrogate the law of the 
Sabbath. But this notion has arisen from the want of 
close attention to what He actually says on the subject in 
its connections, and is a possible one only to those who fail 
to appreciate what has just been stated with respect to the 
unchangeable morality of the decalogue. 


244 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


On several occasions, then, our Saviour was accused, 
mostly by those who belonged to the sect of the Pharisees, 
of breaking the Sabbath himself, and of allowing his dis- 
ciples to break it. How does He answer them? Certainly 
not by denying its immutable obligation, but by convicting 
his accusers of having misunderstood and perverted it, and 
of gross inconsistency in their manner of observing it. 
Thus, when his hungry disciples on the Sabbath had 
plucked the ears of corn out of the fields to eat, “the Phar- 
isees said unto Him, Behold, thy disciples do that which 
is not lawful to do on the Sabbath-day.” But He justified 
them by showing that such things as were demanded by 
human necessity were lawful on that day, and that the 
Pharisees had perverted it from its original object. He 
referred them to the example of David, their most eminent 
saint and greatest national hero, who with his followers had 
eaten the shew-bread from the tabernacle, and were justi- 
fied by their necessity, although, apart from such necessity, 
it was iawful for the priests only to eat that bread. Then 
he called their attention to the work which had to be done 
by the priests in the temple-service, which the Pharisees 
themselves held to be lawful on the Sabbath. Thus he 
laid open their inconsistency, and themselves to the rebuke: 
“Tf ye had known what that meaneth, I will have mercy 
and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guilt- 
less.” Also, on the occasion of his healing a man with a 
withered hand, the Pharisees asked Him: “Is it lawful to 
heal on the Sabbath-day? that they might accuse Him. 
And He said unto them, What man shall there be among’ 
you that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on 
the Sabbath-day, will not lay hold on it and pull it out? 
How much then is a man better than a sheep? Where- 
fore, it is lawful to do well [to do good] on the Sabbath- 
day.” Ona similar occasion: “ Behold, there was a man 
before Him which had the dropsy, and Jesus answering 
spake unto the lawyers [interpreters of the law] and 


“THE HOLY SABBATH DAB 


Pharisees, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath-day ? 
And they held their peace. And He took him and healed 
him and let him go, and answered them, saying, Which of 
you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and will 
not straightway pull him out on the Sabbath-day? And 
they could not answer him again to these things.” In 
fine, when ke was accused of breaking the Sabbath because 
He had healed “a woman which had a spirit of infirmity,” 
He replied to his accuser: “Thou hypocrite, doth not each 
one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the 
stall, and lead him away to watering? And ought not 
this woman, being a daughter of Abraham whom Satan 
hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this 
bond on the Sabbath-day? And when he had said these 
things, all his adversaries were ashamed.” And well they 
might be! Now, in all this He corrects the erroneous no- 
tions which prevailed in His time with respect to the man- 
ner in which the Sabbath ought to be sanctified ; He shows 
that works of necessity and mercy and such as pertained 
to the worship cf God were lawful on that day; but He 
does not even allude to the abrogation nor to any relaxa- 
tion of its immutable obligation as enjoined in the deca- 
logue. 

On the contrary, implicitly at least, He re-affirms it by 
the declaration made in connection with one of the pre- 
vious quotations: “The Sabbath was made for man, and 
not man tor the Sabbath.” For this declaration was given 
in rebuke of the Pharisees because they had perverted the 
Sabbath by teaching the people that works of necessity and 
merey were unlawful on that day; which interpretation of 
the manner in which it was to be observed evidently pro- 
ceeded on the absurd and immoral principle, that man was 
made for the Sabbath: whereas the right understanding of 
all moral law is, that its observance must necessarily be 
promotive of human well-being, and that no conflict is 
possible between our duties and our highest interests. And 


246 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


here it is to be observed, that the Lord does not only say, 
that ‘man was not made for the Sabbath,’ but, also, that 
“the Sabbath was made for man;” that is, not for Jews 
only, nor for the people of any particular age or country, 
but for man as such, in all times, places and circumstances, 
For although it is possible to understand the words other- 
wise, yet it is undeniable that they naturally bear this 
sense, and that it is in perfect harmony with all the other 
Scriptures. This, therefore, is a fair interpretation, and, 
so understood, this declaration affirms the universal obli- 
gation of the Sabbath as essential to the welfare and hap- 
piness of mankind. Certainly a greater perversion of the 
words is not conceivable than to draw from them the sense 
that the Lord abrogated, or in any wise relaxed the obli- 
gation to keep holy the Sabbath-day as enjoined in the 
fourth commandment. 

But,it may be asked, if He did not actually do anything 
of this kind, did He not claim for himself the power to do 
it in the words also spoken in connection with a previous 
quotation: “The Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath ?” 
Tt must be acknowledged that at first sight this would ap- 
pear to be their meaning, but in scrutinizing them more 
closely, we must bear in mind two things: 1. That the 
law of the Sabbath is an integral part of the decalogue, 
which sets forth the eternal principles of morality as 
founded in the nature of God, and which He himself 
cannot set aside ; 2. That the object which the Lord evi- 
dently kept in view in all these arguments with the Phari- 
sees, and the only thing which He undertook to do, was to 
correct their perversions and abuses of the Sabbath, and to 
declare on His own authority how it should be sanctified. 
Now the sense of these words ought not to be pressed be- 
yond this object, and they cannot be without denying the 
immutable nature of the morality of the decalogue. Nei- 
ther is it reasonable to suppose that our Lord would assert 
in such an implicit manner a power to erase and annul one 


THE HOLY SABBATH 247 


of the ten commandments and to reduce their number to 
nine, especially when we remember His solemn declaration: 
“Verily, I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one 
jot or one tittle shall in nowise pass from the law, till all be 
fulfilled.’ It is much more reasonable to understand that 
in this assertion of his lordship over the Sabbath, He claims 
no more than an absolute authority to declare and teach 
how it ought to be sanctified. With this understanding of 
His words, they may be fairly paraphrased as follows: I, 
the Son of man, by the same Divine authority which in- 
stituted the Sabbath at the creation of the world, and which 
promulgated the law of its observance from the summit of 
Mount Sinai, do now and in this way correct your misun-~ 
derstanding and perversions of it, and show you how you 
are to keep it holy; for in that sense in which it can be 
said that God is Lord of the moral law, “the Son of man 
is Lord also of the Sabbath.” 

Having thus seen that our blessed Lord did not abro- 
gate nor at all relax the obligation of the Sabbath, we can 
hardly anticipate that His apostles would claim authority 
to do anything of the kind. Hence we are enabled con- 
sistently to understand the only remaining passage in the 
New Testament which presents any difficulty. This 
occurs in St. Paul’s epistle to the Colossians where in our 
English Bible he is made to say: “ Let no man, there- 
fore, judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a 
holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath-days, 
which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of 
Christ.” Now it is conceded on all hands that this is a 
very poor, and, in some respects, an incorrect translation. 
For in the expression, “sabbath-days,” the latter word is 
not in the original, but has been supplied by the translators : 
and the words “a holy day,” are a palpable mistranslation 
of a single word in the Greek which properly signifies a 
feast, and is so rendered in every other place where it 
occurs, twenty-seven in all. Literally translated, the 


248 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


passage reads as follows: “Let no man, therefore, judge 
you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a feast, or of a 
new moon, or of sabbaths ; which things are a shadow of 
the things to come, but the body is of Christ.” Its general 
reference, beyond a question, is to the various typical feasts 
established by Moses, which the Jewish converts were still 
inclined to observe, whilst the gentiles neglected them, 
and, with respect to which, every one was left free to do as 
he pleased ; for they were all a shadow of which “ the 
body,” or substance, was the gospel “of Christ.” And as 
to the meaning of the word, “sabbaths,” we may ask why 
it is here in the plural, when all the other  specifications— 
meat, drink, a feast, a new moon—are in the singular ? 
Lhe proper answer, no doubt, is, that there were several 
kinds of sabbaths instituted by Moses, such as that of the 
seventh month and that of the sabbatical year; and it is 
to such observances as these that the apostle chiefly refers, 
classing them where they properly belong with distinctions 
in meat and drink, new moons, and other ceremonial 
feasts, all of which were “a shadow of the things to 
come”: and this conclusion is rendered the more probable 
by the well-known fact, that the Jews were accustomed to 
call all their festivals sabbaths, because’ in observing them 
they rested from secular labor. But in so far as he may 
have had any reference to the Sabbath of the decalogue, it 
must have been to the observance of the seventh day along 
with the first, which was extensively practised by Judaiz- 
ing Christians. or that here there can be no allusion 
whatever to the first day of the week, which had now taken 
the place of the seventh, is conclusively proved by the fact, 
that it was not called the Sabbath, but “the Lord’s Day,” 
by the apostles and primitive Christians. If St. Paul had 


referred to it, he must have written: Let no man, there- 


fore, judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a 
feast, or of a new moon, or of the Lord’s Day. 
From the preceding considerations, then, we may safely 


THE HOLY SABBATH 249 


conclude that there are still ten commandments, instead of 
nine only, which all alike are of eternal and immutable 
obligation. But other matters remain to be disposed of, 
the chief of which is the change just alluded to from the 
seventh to the first day of the week, which took place at 
the incoming of the new dispensation. But the difficulty 
of this has been greatly magnified, and we may expect it 
almost or quite to disappear with a little close attention to 
the subject. | 

Let us observe, then, that our Lord himself, previous to 
His crucifixion, undoubtedly observed what was then called 
the seventh day of the week as the Sabbath; and for a 
long time afterwards more or less sacredness was very 
naturally attached to that day by His followers. But 
from the time of His resurrection, the day of the week on 
which it occurred, and which according to the reckoning 
then received was the first, began to be observed by His 
disciples as the day of assemblies for public worship, the 
celebration of the sacraments, Christian communion, and 
other sacred purposes. We have abundant evidence of 
this in the New Testament. Now the fact, that 1t was so 
observed could not fail to give it the character and identify 
it with the Sabbath on which such assemblies had pre- 
viously been held. But inasmuch as there was no com- 
mand for the observance of two Sabbaths, that of the 
seventh day gradually fell into disuse, and in time was 
entirely superseded. It is true, indeed, that Christians 
did not call the first day the Sabbath, for that name had 
become inseparably attached to the seventh; but its ob- 
servance as such was altogether inevitable from the fact of 
its being universally recognized as the day for their wor- 
shipping assemblies and all other sacred purposes, and 
because it was impossible for them to believe that the 
decalogue was, or could be, abrogated. They called it 
“the Lord’s Day.” Yor although this expression occurs 
but once in the New Testament, where the apostle John 

iis 


250 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 
i 


telis us that he “was in the Spirit” on that day, nor does 
he tell us that he meant by it the first day of the week, yet 
we know that such was the fact, because this day was uni- 
versally so called by the Christians of primitive times, as, 
indeed, it has been ever since. Evidently the apostle in- 
troduced the expression as one which would be perfectly 
understood by all for whom he was writing, and needed 
no explanation. 

The influences which brought about this change may be 
further elucidated as follows: Our Lord rose from the 
dead on what was then called the first day of the week, 
and on that day, or its recurrence, invariably afterwards, 
He met with and showed himself to His disciples. This 
took place on at least five different occasions, and we have 
no evidence that He ever appeared on any other day. This 
fact naturally led them to expect Him to meet with and 
manifest himself to them in their worshipping assemblies 
on that day in preference to all others. In this way, it 
seems to have become appropriated to such assemblies, and 
was observed as the Christian Sabbath. Moreover, it was 
when they were so assembled on the first day of the week 
that the Pentecostal outpouring of the Holy Spirit took 
place, by which they were replenished and endowed with 
all spiritual gifts and graces for their great work of evan- 
gelizing the world. Now the influence of this eyer-mem- 
orable event in fixing their minds immovably on that day, 
as the one above all others which was appropriate for their 
worshipping assemblies, the preaching of the gospel, the 
celebration of the sacraments, the taking up of charitable 
collections or offerings, Christian communion, and all the 
other sacred purposes of the Sabbath, can hardly be over- 
estimated. 

Accordingly we find that ever afterwards it was so ob- 
served. Thus, when St. Paul, on one of his missionary tours, 
came to T'roas, he “abode seven days; and upon the first 
day of the week, when the disciples came together to break 


THE HOLY SABBATH D1 


bread [for the celebration of the sacrament of the Lord’s 
Supper | Paul preached unto them.” With like significance 
he wrote to the church at Corinth which he had founded: 
“ Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have 
given order to the churches in Galatia, so do ye; upon the 
first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in 
store as God hath prospered him.” 

In like manner, we find that in the earliest and subse- 
quent Christian authors whose writings have come down 
to us, the first day of the week is accepted, and never 
called in question, as “the Lord’s Day,” and as devoted to 
religious purposes, being observed substantially as the 
seventh day had been under the former dispensation. This 
was so striking a characteristic of the early Christians that 
+t attracted the attention of heathen writers ; for Pliny the 
younger, proconsul of Bithynia, in the latter part of the 
first century, alludes to it in his famous report to the em- 
peror Trajan, where he states that the Christians of his 
province, whom he represents as already immensely 
numerous, were accustomed to meet for the worship of 
Christ “on astated day.” Now we know that this “ stated 
day ” could not have been the seventh, and consequently 
that it was, no doubt, the first of the week, or “ the Lord’s 
Day.” The first Christian author who gives us any in- 
formation on the subject is Justin Martyr, as he is called, 
who lived in the close of the first, and the early part of the 
second century, and who tells us that the Christians did not 
celebrate the Jewish festivals, nor observe their sabbaths, 
but that they were accustomed to assemble on the day which 
the heathen called Sunday, for the reading of the Scrip- 
tures, prayer, exhortation and communion. In the epistle 
ascribed to St. Barnabas, which was generally accepted as 
genuine at the close of the second century, and which con- 
sequently must have been extant in the first, the Lord is 
introduced addressing the Jews as follows: “The sabbaths 
which ye now keep are not acceptable unto me, but those 


959 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


which I have made, when resting from all things I shall 
begin the eighth day, that is, the beginning of the other 
world ”—a somewhat obscure declaration, but made plain 
upon the point for which it is here adduced by the follow- 
ing continuation : “ For which cause, we [Christians] ob- 
serve the eighth day with gladness, in which Jesus rose 
from the dead, and, having manifested himself to His dis- 
ciples, ascended to heaven.” ‘Tertullian, also, at the close 
of the second century, states that “ Christians put off even 
their business on the Lord’s Day that they may not give 
place to the devil,” and adds, “ We celebrate Sunday as a 
joyful day.” Clement of Alexandria about the same date, 
says: “ A true Christian, according to the commands of 
the gospel, observes the Lord’s Day by casting out all evil 
thoughts and cherishing all goodness, honoring the resur- 
rection of the Lord which took place on that day.” And, 
in the latter part of the third, or the commencement of 
the fourth century, Eusebius, the church historian, gives us 
the following explicit and decisive testimony : “The Word, 
by the new covenant, translated and transferred the feast 
of the Sabbath to the morning light, and gave us the sym- 
bol of true rest, the saving Lord’s Day, the first of light, 
in which the Saviour obtained the victory over death ... 
On this day, which is the first of the Light and of the 
true Sun, we assemble after an interval of six days, and 
celebrate a holy and spiritual Sabbath: even all nations 
redeemed by Him throughout the whole world assemble 
and do those things according to the spiritual law which 
were decreed for the priests to do on the Sabbath. All 
things which it was duty to do on the Sabbath, these we 
have transferred to the Lord’s Day, as more appropriately 
belonging to it, because it has the precedence, and is first 
in rank, and more honorable than the Jewish Sabbath. It 
has been handed down to us [from the beginning, or from 
the apostles] that we should... do these things.” 

It seems hardly possible that more conclusive evidence 


THE HOLY SABBATH 253 


should be given that the primitive church observed the 
first day of the week as the Sabbath of the new dispensa- 
tion by doing “all those things which were decreed for the 
priests to do,” and “ which it was duty to do, on the Sab- 
bath.... according to the spiritual law.” But if such 
evidence be possible, we find it in the Sabbath laws of the 
first Christian emperor and his successors. In order to 
appreciate this, however, we must bear in mind that the 
conversion of Constantine, who came to the throne of the 
Roman empire in the commencement of the fourth century, 
has been much disputed, whether it was sincere, or merely 
the result of his political sagacity. But however this may 
have been, one thing is quite certain, that in his time the 
Christian religion had made such progress throughout the 
world, that it was an eminently wise political movement 
on the part of that great monarch to profess and call him- 
self a Christian, and to enact Christian laws. Hence it 
follows that his Sabbath law, as far as it goes at least, must 
be taken as the embodiment and expression of the views 
which generally prevailed among Christians on the subject, 
and if it had not been, it certainly would have proved 
but a dead letter. As soon, therefore, as he found himself 
well settled on the throne, he began to bestow special care 
on the observance of the Lord’s Day. He is known to 
have required his armies, when not actually engaged, to 
spend the day in devotional exercises. He prohibited the 
holding of courts of judicature, and the prosecution of 
trials and suits at law, and the exercise of all trades and 
arts in the cities. But the necessary works of agriculture 
he permitted to go on, and all works of mercy, such as the 
emancipation of slaves, were held to be lawful. The pre- 
cise letter of the law is as follows: “Let all judges, in- 
habitants of cities, and artificers rest on the venerable 
[or sacred] Sunday. But in the country, husbandmen may 
freely and lawfully apply to the business of agriculture, 
since it often happens that the sowing of corn and planting 


254 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


of vines cannot be so advantageously performed on any 
other day, lest by neglecting the opportunity they should 
lose the benefits which the Divine bounty bestows upon 
us.” From this legal permission, however, we cannot 
infer that all such labors were regarded as lawful by the 
church, for in this first attempt to embody Christian duties 
in the laws of the empire, especially when it represented 
such an immense change from all that had previously 
existed, such enactments could not be expected to go as far as 
the views which prevailed among Christians. Accordingly 
subsequent emperors confirmed and extended this rescript 
by prohibiting all public shows, theatrical exhibitions, 
dancing and other amusements; and the councils of 
the church, as soon as they became free to make their 
authority felt, decreed the strict observance of the Lord’s 
Day by abstinence from all secular labors, amusements 
and recreations, and by a faithful attendance upon Divine 
service. 7 

Now if we try to comprehend all these things in one 
view, and consider how impossible it is to account for them 
on any other supposition, they seem to leave no room for 
doubt but that the holy apostles, either so instructed by 
the Lord whilst He remained on earth after His resur- 
rection, or inspired by His Holy Spirit, did teach and en- 
Join that the first day of the week, in place of the seventh, 
should be the Christian Sabbath, which should be kept 
holy to God by abstinence from all things prohibited on 
the Sabbath of the former dispensation, and by devoting 
it exclusively to spiritual purposes. In fact, the very 
name of “ the Lord’s Day,” which it is certain they gave 
it, necessarily implies that it was to be regarded as 
altogether sacred and devoted to religious observances, for 
how otherwise could the name have had any propriety or 
significance? 

But here the question arises, how could the apostles, or 
even the Lord himself, make this change when the original 


THE HOLY SABBATH 255 


command was, that the seventh day should be the Sabbath, 
and since, as we have seen, the Sabbath law is one of eter- 
nal and immutable obligation? Now the answer to this 
question which we regard as perfectly satisfactory, is, that 
what is meant by “the seventh day” in the commandment 
is, one day in seven. For this sense of the words is quite 
as natural and good as any other; and if more than this 
had been intended, insuperable difficulties would have 
arisen from the variation to which any more closely speci- 
fied time is subject with every degree of longitude and 
latitude, and which is such that days in different places 
necessarily correspond to different periods of time. ‘That 
the apostles so understood it is certain from their having 
made this change, which evidently they could not have 
done if in their view what was then called the seventh day 
had been unchangeably appointed and ordained for the 
Sabbath. Nay, this is almost the necessary interpretation of 
the command itself, as in the words: “Six days shall thou 
labor and do all thy work, but the seventh is the Sabbath 
of the Lord thy God.” For here there is no specification 
given to Moses or his people as to the particular one on 
which they should commence to reckon these six days. 
For aught that appears, they were left free to begin this 
reckoning any day on which they might agree, or which 
might be designated by their lawgiver. The command 
itself certainly includes no more than that the seventh day 
from that on which their reckoning commenced should be 
their Sabbath. Neither have we any reason to think that 
they were informed, or that Moses himself or any one else 
knew, which was numerically a recurrence of the seventh 
day from the creation of the world, or how many sevens 
had since elapsed. Nor do we know what determined in 
their minds the day on which they actually commenced 
this reckoning. All that we know is, that they did com- 
mence on a certain day, which we for that reason alone 
call the first day of the week, and that the seventh from it 


256 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


became their Sabbath. But we do know what controlled 
the minds of the apostles in making this change—it was 
the resurrection of the Lord. On the day after that great 
event occurred they commenced to reckon these six days 
of labor, and this was the only change they made. For 
the seventh from that day, according to the commandment, 
became the Christian Sabbath, precisely as the seventh 
from another day had been the Jewish Sabbath. Hence 
it is evident that one is just as much the seventh day as 
the other,and might with equal propriety have been so 
called. Probably the reason why it was not was the fact, 
that the Lord rose from the dead on that day, which, as 
the beginning of a new’ spiritual creation, made it emi- 
nently fit and proper that it should continue to be the first 
of the week. But in neither case have we any evidence, 
either that the Jewish Sabbath was a recurrence of the 
seventh day from the creation of the world, or that the 
Christian Sabbath is a recurrence of the day on which the 
creation commenced. 

So slight was the change made by the holy apostles, and 
so all-controlling were the reasons for it that it seems 
almost to have taken place of itself, without criticism or 
comment, and as a matter of course. For no one at the 
time, so far as we know, objected to it—no one called at- 
tention to it. It passed into the life of the church as 
the light of the sun, in crossing the equator, passes into 
the life of the new regions which he comes to vivify with 
his all-quickening beams. And in order that the faith 
of the Lord’s resurrection might thus enter into and new 
mould the life of the world, it was eminently fitting and 
proper that it should be commemorated by an institution, 
the constant observance of which should keep it in ever- 
lasting remembrance. For it was the crown and seal 
which God placed upon His whole redemptive work, 
which without it would have been utterly in vain—a dead 
Christ could not have given life to the world. It was 


THE HOLY SABBATH 257 


God’s seal to convince mankind that He was all He claimed 
to be—“He was declared to be the Son of God with 
power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by His resur- 
rection from the dead.” By its Divine efficacy His people 
are raised up from death in trespasses and sins to the 
new life of the gospel, for which object it is no less 
efficacious than is His sacrificial death to expiate their 
guilt and reconcile them to God: “For if we have been 
planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be 
also in the likeness of His resurrection... That like as 
Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the 
Father, even so we also should [be raised up from death 
in sin and] walk in newness of life.” And it is the pledge 
or earnest which God has graciously given us that we shall 
be raised up in the resurrection at the last day unto immor- 
tality and eternal glory; for ‘now is Christ risen and be- 
come the first fruits of them that slept... If we believe 
that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which 
sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.” It is in this 
sense that the resurrection of the Lord is the foundation 
of all our hopes, and thus we are enabled to say with the 
holy apostle in his burst of jubilation: “ Blessed be the 
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ which, accord- 
ing to His abundant mercy, hath begotten us again unto 
a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the 
dead unto an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and 
that fadeth not away.” 

Hence it was that, as the Jewish Sabbath had been in- 
stituted in commemoration of the rest of God after the 
creation of the world, so the Christian Sabbath was estab- 
lished to commemorate the finished work of Christ in the 
new creation of the spiritual world. As in the former 
creation God had said, “Let there be light and there was 
light,” so the resurrection of the Lord was His omnipotent 
word, saying, Let there be light in the spiritual world, and 
there was light: “For God who commanded the light to 


258 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


shine out of darkness hath shined into our hearts to give 
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the 
face of Jesus Christ... Who hath abolished death, and 
brought light and immortality to light.” As at the 
original creation, order and beauty arose out of the prime- 
val chaos, so at the resurrection of Christ the chaos which 
had previously reigned in the spiritual world began to 
give place to the order of moral law and to the beauty of 
holiness. As God rested from His work of creation when 
it was finished, so our Lord Jesus Christ, when He had 
finished His work from which the new creation was to 
spring, passed into the rest of His eternal glory and re- 
ward. And as God, when He looked upon all that He 
had made, pronounced it very good, so our blessed Lord, 
surveying the fruits and consequences of His work in the 
history of mankind, pronounces them all very good; and 
thus the prophecy is fulfilled: “He shall see of the travail 
of His soul and shall be satisfied”’ Indeed, it may be 
truly said that this new spiritual creation is a greater and 
nobler work of Divine power than was the creation of the 
natural world. There were, therefore, the best of reasons 
why the day on which it was crowned should be forever 
distinguished from all others as, in a peculiar sense, “the 
Lord’s Day,” and why it should be sanctified in place of 
that which had previously commemorated what now should 
hardly be remembered by reason of the glory which so 
much excelled it. 

If, now, the preceding argument be sound and conclu- 
sive, it follows by inevitable necessity that the instructions 
given in the Old Testament for the observance of the Sab- 
bath are, in their spiritual import, equally valid for the 
Sabbath of the new dispensation: and these have been so 
lucidly and admirably exhibited by the Westminster di- 
vines, that we can hardly do better than to present them 
here in their words, as follows: 


“The Sabbath or Lord’s Day is to be sanctified by a 


THE HOLY SABBATH 259 


holy resting all that day, not only from such works as are 
at all times sinful, but even from such worldly employ- 
ments and recreations as are on other days lawful; and 
[by] making it our delight to spend the whole time (ex- 
cept so much of it as is to be taken up in works of neces- 
sity and mercy) in the public and private exercises of 
God’s worship: and to that end, we are to prepare our 
hearts, and with such foresight, diligence and moderation 
to dispose and seasonably dispatch our worldly business, 
that we may be the more free and fit for the duties of the 
day.... The sins forbidden in the fourth commandment 
are, all omission of the duties required, all careless, negli- 
gent and unprofitable performing of them, and being weary 
of them, all profaning the day by idleness, and doing that 
which is in itself sinful, and by needless works, words, and 
thoughts about our worldly employments and recreations.” 
To this is added, also, among other things: “The charge 
of keeping the Sabbath is more specially directed to gov- 
ernors of families and other superiors, because they are 
bound, not only to keep it themselves, but to see that it be 
observed by all those that are under their charge, and be- 
cause they are prone ofttimes to hinder them by employ- 
ments of their own.” 

Now, all these obligations are founded on clear state- 
ments in the word of God, some of which are exceedingly 
instructive as illustrating the nature and extent of that 
observance of the Sabbath which He requires. One of 
these is contained in the account which is given us of the 
manna in the wilderness. or since a universal and 
pressing temptation to violate this Divine law would ne- 
cessarily arise in connection with the provision and prepa- 
ration of man’s daily food, special pains had to be taken 
to guard this point. Accordingly, even before the law 
had been re-affirmed from Mount Sinai, an example of its 
violation occurred, which is carefully recorded, and which, 
no doubt, was permitted, for the instruction of all succeed- 


260 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


ing generations of mankind. Jor the manna, as we have | 
seen, did not fall on the seventh day, and the people were 
strictly probibited from going out to look for it on that 
day: a double portion fell on the sixth day, and they were 
commanded to gather twice as much on that day, and to 
prepare what was left over to serve them on the Sabbath. 
Thus it was said to them: “The Lord hath given you the 
Sabbath ; therefore, he giveth you on the sixth day the 
bread of two days; abide ye every man in his place—-let 
no man go out of his place on the Sabbath-day....To- 
morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord: 
bake that which ye will bake to-day, and seethe that ye 
will seethe, and that which remaineth over lay up for you 
to be kept until the morning.” And on the morrow it 
was said to them: “ Eat that to-day, for to-day is a Sab- 

bath unto the Lord ; to-day ye shall not find it in the field. 
_,..And it came to pass that there went out some of the 
people on the seventh day for to gather, and they found 
none.” Also, if they gathered more than was necessary 
on any other day, it corrupted and bred worms; but that 
which they prepared on the sixth day for the Sabbath did 
not corrupt, “neither was there any worm therein.” Now, 
if there be in all this any instruction for us, it cannot surely 
be less than that we are prohibited from all unnecessary 
provision and preparation of food on the Sabbath-day. 
Here it is enjoined that our food for that day is to be 
cooked on the day preceding. We are taught, moreover, 
that by such abstinence we shall lose nothing ; that God’s 
blessing on our industry will enable us by six days’ labor 
to provide for the seventh ; and that all unnecessary labor 
on that day will prove unprofitable. Indeed, if men would 
take pains to make suitable observations on this point, we 
have reason to believe that nothing could be found more 
uniform and remarkable than the utter unprofitableness of 
Sunday work. 

Sunilar instructions also are given us by the prophet 


THE HOLY SABBATH 261 


Nehemiah after the return from the captivity in Baby- 
lon, where the people seem to have fallen into great laxity 
in the observance of the Sabbath. ‘Some of these are as 
follows: “In those days I saw in Judah some treading 
wine-presses on the Sabbath, and bringing in sheaves, 
and lading asses, as, also, wine, grapes and figs, and all 
manner of burdens, which they brought into Jerusalem on 
the Sabbath-day : and I testified against them in the day 
wherein they sold victuals. There dwelt men of Tyre 
also therein, which brought fish and all manner of ware, 
and sold on the Sabbath unto the children of Judah in 
Jerusalem. Then I contended with the nobles of Judah, 
and said unto them, What evil thing is this that ye do, 
and profane the Sabbath-day ? Did not your fathers thus, 
and did not our God bring all this evil upon us and upon 
this city? Yet ye bring more wrath upon Israel by pro- 
faning the Sabbath.” The interest of this passage, how- 
ever, lies not so much in its prohibition of secular employ- 
ments connected with ‘ the selling and buying of victuals,’ 
but more especially in the fact, that it brings distinctly 
into view the duties of governors and rulers, as such, to 
protect all men in the observance of the Sabbath by such 
exercise of their authority and such laws as shall in no 
wise favor, but discourage and suppress its open and pub- 
lie violation. For inasmuch as it involves one of the 
great moral principles of the decalogue, laws for the pro- 
tection and promotion of its observance, with penalties for 
its violation, rest on the same foundation, are of the same 
character, and are no less necessary to the well-being of man- 
kind, than legal prohibitions of theft, adultery and murder. 
To enact and execute such laws is a duty which nations and 
rulers owe to God on their own responsibility ; and it has no 
more connection with questions of union between church 
and state than any other enactments founded on Christian 
morality (in distinction from pagan and Mohammedan) 
which is the common law of all Christian countries. 


262 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


Moreover, the Sabbath is not only to be observed by 
abstinence from all such unnecessary labors, but is to be 
kept holy with the mind and heart. This is necessarily 
implied in its New Testament name of “the Lord’s Day,” 
as also in the words, “ the holy Sabbath unto the Lord,” 
“the Sabbath of the Lord thy God;” and it is clearly 
brought out in many passages, such as the following: “If 
thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy 
pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, 
the holy of the Lord honorable; and shalt honor Him, 
not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, 
nor speaking thine own words; then shalt thou delight 
thyself in the Lord, and I will cause thee to ride upon the 
high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage 
of Jacob thy father; for the mouth of the Lord hath 
spoken it.” And the opposite violations of the Sabbath 
with the mind and heart are thus stigmatized: ‘“ Hear 
ye this, O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the 
poor of the land to fail, saying, When will the new moon 
be gone that we may sell corn, and the Sabbath, that we 
may set forth wheat, making the ephah small and the 
shekel great, and falsying the balances of deceit?” Now 
here we are prohibited from doing our own works, from 
speaking our own words, from thinking our own thoughts, 
and from seeking in any way our own pleasure, that is, 
from all actions, thoughts and affections concerning our 
secular employments and recreations, and from that im- 
patience and weariness which are inseparable from the 
restraints of Sabbath-keeping where the heart is not in it; 
and all such things are properly associated where they be- 
long, with dishonesty and oppression of the poor, to which 
they often lead. These prohibitions enjoin, of course, the 
opposite duties, which also are mostly expressed, namely, 
that we think the thoughts of God, seek the pleasure of 
God, speak the words of God, and do the works of God ; 
that we count this holy day of the Lord honorable and a 


THE HOLY SABBATH 263 


delight—that we take delight in its holy exercises and de- 
votions; and to such observance of it all temporal and 
fantoal blessings are promised on the faith of God: “ For 
the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” 

In conclusion, the motives which we have for the faith- 
ful observance of the Sabbath are, when rightly appre- 
ciated, of all-controlling efficacv. In general, they are 
all that have force and weight to incline our hearts to keep 
any other of God’s commandments. In particular, they 
are such as the following: 

1. We have our Lord’s declaration that “the Sabbath 
was made for man,” the force of which is, that its proper 
observance is necessary to the well-being and happiness of 
mankind—that there is a blessing from God in it—and 
this is abundantly confirmed by all experience. For if 
such experience can make anything certain, it is that rest 
from labor and worldly cares one day in seven is indis- 
pensable to health of body and mind. Uninterrupted 
secular employments exhaust the life, induce softening of 
the brain, paralytic affections, epilepsies, consumptions, and 
many other acute and fatal maladies. The employment 
of the Sabbath in the worship and service of God, and in 
unselfish endeavors to do good to others, brings with it a 
change in the currents of thought and other mental exer- 
cises and in the bodily activities which is refreshing, re- 
invigorating and healthful—it inspires new life and energy 
after the secular toil of the week. ‘This change is most 
necessary for laboring people, who receive as much com- 
pensation for six days’ work as they would for seven, and 
who accomplish thereby as much, no doubt, for their em- 
ployers. The plea that such people need to spend the 
day in worldly recreation and pleasure-seeking, and are 
justified in so doing, has nothing in it but deceitful plausi- 
bility; for where it is thus perverted into a mere secular 
holiday, it soon becomes, through the exactions of employ~ 
ers and the pressure of want on the unemployed, a day of 


264 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


labor like the others. Of all people, the poor have the 
ereatest need to stand by the religious observance of the 
Sabbath; for it is their strongest protection against that 
oppression of their taskmasters which is so closely con- 
nected, as we have seen, with the violation and relaxed ob- 
servance of God’s holy day. 

2. The Sabbath is indispensable to the proper influence 
and success of the Christian religion in the world. For it 
affords the only suitable and practicable time and opportu- 
nity for the people to assemble themselves together for 
public worship, the preaching of the gospel, the ceiebra- 
tion of the sacraments, Christian communion, and Sabbath- 
school teaching : and without these,with the exception of the 
last, which is not therefore to be regarded as of small im- 
portance, there can be no Christianity. If they should 
fall into desuetude, not only could it make no progress, 
but it would soon die out of the world. Its power in dif- 
ferent countries may even now be measured by the manner 
in which the Sabbath is observed. For where it has ceased 
to be regarded as a holy day, and has become for the most 
part a secular holiday, there we find a very sparse attend- 
ance on church services in the morning, and the afternoon 
and evening are given up to pleasure seeking; in conse- 
quence of which, drunkenness, immorality and crime 
abound, and there is more of these than on any other day. 
It is well understood that to close up on the Sabbath 
the places where intoxicating liquors are sold would ruin 
most of them. On'the other hand, where the day is the 
most strictly and generally observed, there religion has the 
greatest power for the salvation of man—there we uni- 
formly find the least immorality, drunkenness, pauperism 
and crime. Wemake no show of evidence here because 
these things are undeniable: whence it is evident that the 
enemies of the Sabbath are the enemies of the Christian 
religion. 

3. Sabbath-breaking brings upon men some of the 


THE HOLY SABBATH 265 


heaviest judgments of God. There is hardly anything 
more insisted on in the Word than this; and it is equally 
true of individuals, communities and nations, Thus the 
captivity in Babylon is represented in many places as a 
judgment upon Israel for this sin, of which the following 
is a single example: “And them that had escaped from 
the sword carried he away to Babylon, where they were 
servants...to fulfil the word of the Lord by the mouth 
of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths ; for 
as long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath to fufil three 
score and ten years.” Also, in many other places, the 
banishment of the Jews from Palestine, the desolation of 
their cities and country, and their dispersion throughout 
the world, as we see them now, are ascribed to their sin 
of Sabbath-breaking, of all which the following is a single 
example: “And I will scatter you among the heathen, 
and will draw out a sword after you, and your land shall 
be desolate and your cities waste. Then shall the land 
enjoy her Sabbaths as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in 
your enemies’ land : even then shall the land rest and enjoy 
her Sabbaths.” In fact, a great many of God’s judgments 
upon men are in His word connected directly or indirectly 
with the violation of the fourth commandment; and this, 
for the best of reasons, as we can see, namely, that this sin 
is often the beginning and root of many others; whilst 
strict morality in this particular is a mighty defence against 
temptation in all circumstances. 

4, But the only effectual motive to Sabbath-keeping, we 
are persuaded, must be drawn from the reason which God 
himself has given us, in that “He rested and was re- 
freshed ” after His work of creation; in other words, that 
there is something in God which the Sabbath represents, 
and to which it corresponds. Where this motive is not 
enforced, we may expect “the holy of the Lord” to be, as 
now it is, imperfectly sanctified by the best, and generally 


violated without remorse or compunction. Its restoration 
12 


266 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


to its true place in the church, we have reason to anticipate, 
could hardly fail to be accompanied and followed by a 
mighty increase of her spiritual light, and of her spiritual 
power for the salvation of mankind. 


XIV 
THE INSTITUTION AND ORGANIZATION OF SOCIETY 


And the Lord God said, It is not good that man should be 
alone: I will make him a help meet for [counterpart to] him.... 
Male and feraale created He them, and blessed them: and God 
said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, 
and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and 
over the fowl] of the air, and over every living thing that moveth 
upon the earth. 


In these sublime deliverances, we have the origin and 
institution, the nature and objects, of human society, as it 
lay before the mind of God when He created man. The 
words, “It is not good that man should be alone,” express 
the most comprehensive of all his necessities, namely, that 
of association with his kind. To satisfy this want, a 
woman was created, and marriage instituted, for the pro- 
creation of human beings; and thus society was instituted. 
Also, in the words, literally translated, “I will make him 
a help counterpart to him,” we have given the most funda- 
mental principle of the marriage union, and of all human 
associations. For it is this counterpartness of man and 
woman to each other—physical, intellectual and moral— 
which renders marriage organic in its nature, and consti- 
tutes it the foundation and type of organic society. In 
fine, the object of this arrangement as here stated, is, that 
man, by his associated energies, should subdue and control 
the forces of nature and the properties of matter to his 
own uses and ends. Thus we have laid open before us the 
whole vast realm of social science, and the principles 


authoritatively prescribed by which only is. it possible to 
267 


268 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE ~ 


comprehend in unity the infinite variety and complexity of 
the social phenomena. These principles we now undertake 
to elucidate. 

But, first, it may be premised, that there is not a little 
prejudice in the minds of sensible and well-informed peo- 
ple against sociology, that 1s, the science of human society. 
This is due, no doubt, to a variety of causes, one of which 
is, that this whole department of knowledge has com- 
monly been identified with political economy, which, in 
fact, includes only one or two of at least six co-ordinate 
branches of the general subject: and the influence of this 
cause has been all the greater inasmuch as the methods and 
conclusions of the different authors in economics have 
hitherto proved anything but harmonious or satisfactory. 
Besides this, the social forces and phenomena are so numer- 
ous, and so complicated with each other, that a complete 
analysis of them seems to be an almost hopeless task. But 
probably the most influential of these causes is, that the 
subject has had a peculiar attraction for, and has been most 
copiously treated by infidel authors, such as Hobbes, 
Comte, Buckle, J. Stewart Mill and Herbert Spencer. 
This, however, ought not to influence our minds when we 
consider what ample instruction God has given us on the 
subject of our social relations, which certainly implies that 
the science of them, notwithstanding their number and 
complexity, is a possible one. Moreover, this science 
treats, as we shall presently see, of a vast number of most 
interesting problems, the solution of which can hardly fail 
to affect the welfare of mankind as deeply and perma- 
nently as any that have been agitated since the rise of the 
Protestant reformation. But, apart from these considera- 
tions, there are two all-sufficient reasons for a critical ex- 
amination of the nature of human society. One of these 
is, that man is essentially rational, and hence under a 
necessity of striving to render to himself a rational account 
of the phenomena of his own life, in which the social 


INSTITUTION AND ORGANIZATION OF SOCIETY 969 


element everywhere predominates. Thus he is naturally led 
to undertake a description and classification of the social 
facts, in order to determine, in the interest of science, the 
laws by which they are governed. The other reason is, 
that such a rational comprehension of the social instincts 
tends to bring them under the control of reason and free- 
will, apart from which, they are like untrained and un- 
pruned vines, which run wild, waste their redundant 
energies, and frustrate their own ends. For whatsoever is 
distinctively human is such from its connection with reason 
and free-will; everything else in man is either animal or 
vegetable. 

The social instincts, which have just been mentioned, are 
the primary cause of all association among living creatures. 
In the animal or lower, as well as in all the higher and 
spiritual elements of his complex nature, man is a social 
being. As by nature birds fly in the air, and fish swim in 
the water, so man, by that which he has in common with 
the animals, lives in society. As mere animals, human 
beings would associate together for the same reasons that 
bees live in swarms, and beavers in tribes. 

The nobler elements of human nature are equally social. 
As rational beings, we have an inborn consciousness, an 
intuitive perception, of our vital dependence upon society. 
The moral and spiritual nature in man is pre-eminently 
social, and incapable of being otherwise comprehended, 
developed and perfected. For man is not man but in and 
through association with his kind. Human life is essen- 
tially a communion. The perfect idea of humanity can 
never be realized apart from that great principle which is 
enunciated in the words of the Apostles’ Creed: “T 
believe in the communion of saints.” Such is the profound 
significance of the declaration: “It is not good for man 
to be alone.” Accordingly, in all ages and countries, both 
in that undeveloped or degraded condition in which the 
animal predominates over the rational and moral nature, 


270 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


and in the highest state of civilization and enlightenment, in 
which the spiritual gives the supreme law to human life, 
men have lived, and must ever live, in society. Solitude 
is naturally hateful, and an adequate punishment for the 
worst crimes. Hence the peculiar form in which the death, 
penalty was prescribed in the law of Moses: “That soul 
shall be cut off from his people. 

This all-pervading principle of association is limited, 
however, by the distinction between species in living 
creatures ; in other words, it is conditioned by specific 
unity of life. For animals of diverse species, except under 
artificial arrangements, do not flock or herd or swarm 
together. Even the most closely allied forms of animal 
life, such as the bison and the cow, the dog and the wolf, 
are naturally the bitterest enemies to each other. They 
seem to be incapable of understanding and of sympathiz- 
ing with each other, and, hence, of associating together. 
The case is similar with man, who can hardly form any 
conception of the consciousness or experience of a mere 
animal, or of an angel, or, indeed, of any creature belong- 
ing to a different species from his own. If there were not 
this unity of life in mankind, if we were not all properly 
of one species, there could be no mutual understanding or 
sympathy among us, and we could not associate with each 
other any more than the fox with the dog, or the bee with 
the beaver. 

Yet there is a fundamental difference between man and 
the lower creatures with respect to their associations. For 
that of animals, except in their distinctions of sex, is mostly 
destitute of that counterpartness upon which organization 
is founded, and which is the most essential characteristic of 
human society. Among animals of the same species, which 
only can associate together in a state of nature, there is lit- 
tle or no diversity of faculty and function, of special charac- 
teristics and adaptations, corresponding to each other in 
different individuals. The members of a grex, whether a 


INSTITUTION AND ORGANIZATION OF SOCIETY OT 


tribe, or flock, or swarm, are all substantially alike, and 
little more than mere repetitions of each other. This uni- 
formity is so striking that it is marked in the most widely 
separated languages of mankind by the use of the singular 
for the plural, as where we say, a flock of sheep, not sheeps, 
a herd of deer, a tribe of beaver, a school of fish, not deers, 
nor beavers, nor fishes. 

It is true, however, that we find in some species of in- 
sects what seems to be a pre-intimation of this diversity of 
faculty and function, and a semblance of organization 
founded upon it. In a bee-hive, e. g., there are several 
distinct classes of individuals included within the common 
species, each of which is charged with a different set of 
operations. Here we have the mother or queen bee, the 
males or drones, the nurses, the workers in wax, and the 
workers in honey. But, even in this case, the individuals 
of each class are mere numerical repetitions of each other, 
and are confined to the same operations by a distinct and 
peculiar physical constitution. We discover nothing here 
of the nature of voluntary division or organization of labor. 
One bee does not gather wax and pass it to another to be 
built into a cell, neither does one gather honey and pass it 
to another to be stored. ven here, therefore, the grex 
offers us nothing beyond that semblance of organization in 
which, as in so many other instances, the operations of ani- 
mal instinct counterfeit those of human reason. Among 
animals, in general, there is not even this semblance. 
Those of the same species are all confined to means and 
operations which are precisely or nearly the same. Birds 
of the same species all build their nests in the same man- 
ner, and there is no part in the work of a beaver-dam, so 
far as we know, which one beaver cannot perform as well 
as another. Mere animals are incapable of specializing 
their employments, incapable of voluntary division and: 
organization of their labors, and hence their association 
with each other is properly inorganic. 


ZT WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


But, whilst the grex is thus incapable of organized asso- 
ciation, the individuals of which it is composed are abun- 
dantly capable of co-operating together for common ends, 
and thus of increasing their force by massing their num- 
bers. And, in this way, the principle of animal association 
enters also into human society, most largely, as we should 
anticipate, where man is least developed, or most degraded, 
and his condition approaches most nearly to that of the 
brute. for it is in such communities that we find the 
fewest and least marked divergencies from. the common 
type, the least diversity of special characteristics and adap- 
tations, and hardly any specialization or diversification of 
employments. Each wild man builds his own hut, or finds 
for himself’ a natural cave to shelter him from the elements, 
makes his own weapons, does his own hunting and fishing, 
and gathers for himself the spontaneous fruits of nature. 
Here, also, marriage and the family, the foundation and 
chief corner-stone of organized society, are almost or quite 
unknown. Consequently, whilst all are thus engaged in 
the same pursuits and operations, their human capacity for 
personal differentiation remains undeveloped. They are 
almost as much alike as the wild horses of the South Amer- 
ican savannahs. We find it so to this day in Africa, Aus- 
tralia, among the ante-Brahmanical tribes of India, and 
elsewhere. The striking resemblance of the American In- 
dians to each other in color, stature, features, mental and 
moral characteristics, and in other numerous particulars, 
has been often remarked, and various explanations of it 
have been suggested ; but the true reason, beyond a ques- 
tion, is, that their wild life affords them the least possible 
diversification of employments. Hence they have few other 
ways of increasing their force than that of massing their 
numbers. In these low forms, human life, in its associa- 
tion as in other respects, approaches that of mere animals. 

This principle of animal gregariousness, in default of a 
better word, enters, also, as a substratum, into the higher 


INSTITUTION AND ORGANIZATION OF SOCIETY 273 


and more developed forms of human society. We see it 
in a gang of field-hands picking cotton, in a gang of “log- 
gers” felling timber, in a gang of laborers digging a canal, 
and wherever the word gang is applied to a company of 
human beings. These, indeed, are not perfect examples, 
for some degree of specialization enters into almost all human 
employments. ,And this simple co-operation of numbers, 
with little diversity in the means used, is of such impor- 
tance to the great objects of human society that, without it, 
little could ever have been accomplished. For the units 
of personal force are so small and feeble that, apart from 
mutual aid, they could hardly fail to be swallowed up, in 
no long time, by the hostile forces of nature—those vast 
and fatal forces, which threaten us from every quarter, 
and which destroy without mercy all the feebler forms of 
human, animal and vegetable life; but which man, by his 
associated and organized energies, subjugates to his own 
uses and ends, until, with all the docility of domesticated 
animals, they grind in his mills, carry his messages with 
lightning speed, and transport him and his merchandise, 
as the bird flies, from continent to continent and from pole 
to pole. 

These grand results are mainly due to organization 
founded on counterpart differences between individuals, 
which is the leading characteristic of human society, as 
distinguished from animal gregariousness, and the most 
fundamental principle of social science. It is our lamp 
and clue in the exploration of the labyrinths of this vast 
department of knowledge. By it alone are we enabled to 
comprehend the phenomena with which we have to deal. 
It is to the infinite number and complexity of the social 
phenomena what the principle of gravitation is to the phys- 
ical universe. Without it, society is a chaos; with it, a 
cosmos. Hence we can make no further progress in this 
discussion until we have formed a distinct and precise con- 
ception of this all-comprehending principle. 

Lat 


274 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


Let us observe, then, that an organism in nature is a 
body possessed of life and various organs, which organs 
minister to the support, development and manifestation of 
its life. or this purpose they are in vital union with the 
body, and, also, with each other, in consequence of which 
they are mutually interdependent, and contribute to each 
other’s support and well-being by a system of vital ex- 
changes among themselves. ‘Thus the human body is an 
organism. It is possessed of life, and is composed of 
organs, such as the hands, feet, stomach, heart, lungs, 
brain, eyes, nose and mouth. These organs are in vital 
union with the body, and thereby, with each other. Also, 
they are different from each other, and perform different 
functions in their ministry to the body and to each other; 
and they are mutually interdependent by a system of vital 
exchanges among themselves. The hands, e. g., provide 
food for the mouth, the mouth prepares it and delivers it 
over to the stomach, and the stomach distributes it as 
nourishment back again to the hands, mouth, and all the 
other organs and parts of the body. Such is an organism 
in nature—the grand type of organic society. 

It is no less necessary for us to form a distinct and clear 
conception of the principal differences between the higher 
and lower organisms in nature, for the reason that these 
represent the more and less advanced stages of organization 
in society. The higher, then, an organism is, the more 
numerous and perfect are its organs, the more diverse 
they are from each othér, the more specialized are their 
functions, the more interdependent they are, and the more 
full and complete is the system of exchanges among them. 
The highest organism in nature is that of the human body, 
and we see how numerous and perfect are its organs; how 
different they are from each other—as the eye from the 
hand, the stomach from the brain; how diverse and 
specialized are their functions, so that by no means can 
the heart perform the work of the lungs, nor the feet that 


INSTITUTION AND ORGANIZATION OF SOCIETY 975 


of the brain; how dependent they are upon each other, so 
that a lesion of one will often paralyze them all; and how 
full and perfect is the system of vital exchanges among 
them, in that the brain directs the hands, the hands pro- 
vide food for the stomach, and the stomach nourishes 
the brain. On the other hand, the lower an organism is, 
the fewer and less perfect are its organs, the more they 
resemble each other, the less special are their functions, 
the more independent they are of each other, and the feebler 
are the exchanges among them. The angle-worm is an 
example, and how few are its organs—there are but three 
or four of them—and these are so much alike, perform so 
nearly the same functions, and are so independent of each 
other, that, if it be cut in two, each part, it is said, will 
continue to live, and will become a perfect worm. But, 
whether this be true of the earth-worm or not, it is cer- 
tainly true of the polype, a still lower organism. There 
are, of course, many other differences between the higher 
and the lower forms of organization, but these are the 
principal ones, and are sufficient for our present purpose. 

In further illustration of these organic differences, we 
quote from the Morphologie of Goethe as follows: 

“The more imperfect a creature is, the more do its parts 
resemble each other, and the whole to which they belong. 
The more perfect a creature is, the more dissimilar are its 
parts. In the former case, the parts are more or less a 
repetition of the whole; in the latter, they are unlike the 
whole. The greater the resemblance between the parts, 
the less subordination there is of one to another. Sub- 
ordination indicates a high grade of organization.” * 

Professor Arnold Guyot, also, in his Earth and Man, 
applies these laws of organization to illustrate the nature 
of human society as follows : 

“ Differences are the condition of development. The 


* Goethe’s Summtliche Werke, Sechsanddreissigster Band, p. 7. 


276 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


mutual exchanges which are the consequences of these 
differences waken and manifest life. The greater the di- 


versity of organs, the more active and superior is the life 


of the individual; and the greater the variety of indi- 
vidualities and of relations in a society, the greater also is 
the sum of lite, the more complete, and of the more eleva- 
ted order.” * 

Now, in all these particulars and in many others which 
might be enumerated, organisms in nature symbolize and 
represent human society, especially its higher and lower 
forms, its more and less advanced stages of organization. 
And this analogy is so complete and obvious that it has 
always been recognized, and has become so familiar that 
“the social organism” seems hardly to involve a figure of 
speech. Thus Plato, in his model Republic, divides the 
citizens into three classes corresponding to the three prin- 
cipal faculties of the human mind. The first of these is 
that of the rulers which represent the intellect or reason of 
society ; the second is the military class, typified by the 
human will; the third includes all who are engaged in the 
pursuits of industry, and who, in his scheme, correspond 
to the passions and appetites of the animal nature in man. 
Here, however, the analogy is very imperfectly compre- 
hended, and is perverted to inculcate gross heathen errors, 
especially that of the essential degradation of the indus- 
trial class. Aristotle also teaches us that :— 

“A state [or body politic] is composed of dissimilar 
parts, as an animal is of life and body... of these and 
many other dissimilar parts.” 

But, unlike Plato, he makes little or no use of the anal- 
ogy, although he indorses and emphasizes the errors which 
had been drawn from it by his great predecessor. For in an- 
other place he makes the following authoritative deliverance : 

“Tt is impossible for a mechanic, or hired seryant, to 


* Earth and Man, pp. 100, 101. 


INSTITUTION AND ORGANIZATION OF SOCIETY pir: 


practice a life of virtue... It is not proper for any man of 
honor, nor for any citizen, nor for any one engaged in 
public affairs, to learn these servile employments.” 

In modern times, also, this analogy has been recognized 
and its significance expounded, as in the celebrated work 
of Hobbes on Civil and Seclesiastical Society entitled 
Leviathan, which name he applies to society itself, as 
follows : 

“That great Leviathan called a commonwealth or state 
(civitas)...is but an artificial man, though of greater 
strength and stature than the natural...in which the 
sovereignty is an artificial soul... reward and punishment, 
the nerves; wealth and riches... its strength; salus popult 
... its business... concord, health; sedition, sickness; civil 
war, death.” 

It is true that in all this, as in everything else by the 
same author, there is a great deal that is very “ artificial,” 
but the conception of society as an organism, which runs 
through the whole work, is none the less true and profound. 
Again, in the Sociology of Comte, this conception is de- 
veloped and applied in great fulness of detail, and it is 
the fundamental idea of the Principles of Social Science, 
by Henry C. Carey, and of all his voluminous writings on 
this subject. In fine, Herbert Spencer lays down the three 
following points of resemblance between organisms in 
nature and human societies, although he fails to make any 
adequate use of them for the solution of social problems : 

“The first is, that, commencing as small aggregations, 
they—that is, both organisms in nature and societies—in- 
sensibly augment in mass, some of them reaching eventually 
perhaps a hundred thousand times what they originally 
were. ‘he second is, that, while at first so simple in 
structure as to be almost considered structureless, they 
assume, in the course of their growth, a continually in- 
creasing complexity of structure. The third is, that, 
though in their early undeveloped state there exists in them 


978 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


searcely any mutual dependence of parts, these parts 
gradually acquire a mutual dependence, which becomes at 
last so great that the activity and life of each part is made 
possible only by the activity and life of the rest. These 
parallelisms will appear the more significant, the more we 
contemplate them... The orderly progress from simplicity 
to complexity displayed by societies in common with every 
living body whatever .. distinguishes them from inanimate 
bodies..and this functional dependence of the parts .. 
is exhibited by the noblest animals and the highest so- 
cieties in the greatest degree... The lowest types of ani- 
mals do not increase to anything like the size of the higher 
ones; and similarly we see that aboriginal societies are 
comparatively of limited growth. In complexity, also, 
our civilized nations as much exceed the primitive savage 
ones as a vertebrate animal does a zodphite. In simple 
communities, moreover, as in simple creatures, the mutual 
dependence of the parts is so slight that subdivision or 
mutilation causes little inconvenience, whilst in complex 
communities, as in complex creatures, you cannot remove 
or injure any considerable organ without producing great 
disturbance or death to the rest.” 

We conclude these citations with one from St. Paul, in 
which he sets forth the Divine idea of society, as destined 
to be first realized in the Christian church, and ultimately 
in all mankind, and which contains, beyond comparison, 
the most full and significant exhibition of the organic 
structure of society that has ever been given in such few 
words. It all turns upon the analogy between the human 
organism and man’s association with his kind, to which 
he elsewhere refers in many different connections; but here 
he devotes a long chapter to a detailed exposition of it, 
emphasizing the diversity of organs, functions, ministries 
and operations within the organic unity of the social body, 
in order to show that the individuals of which it is com- 
posed bear to it and to each other relations similar to those 


ae — 


INSTITUTION AND ORGANIZATION OF SOCIETY 979 


between the human body and its members, and between 
the members themselves. The passage is in part as fol- 
lows :— 

“As the body is one and hath many members, and as 
all the members of that one body, being many, are one 
body, so also is Christ [Christian society]. For the body is 
not one member, but many. If the foot shall say, Because 
IT am not the hand, I am not of the body, is it therefore 
not of the body? And if the ear shall say, Because I am 
not the eye, I am not of the body, is it therefore not of the 
body? If the whole body were an eye, where were the 
hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the 
smelling? .. And if they were all one member, where were 
the body? But, now, they are many members, yet one 
body. And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no 
need of thee; nor, again, the hand to the feet, I have no 
need of you. Nay, much more those members of the body 
which seem to be more feeble are necessary; and those 
members of the body which we think to be less honorable, 
upon these we bestow more abundant honor, and our un- 
comely parts have more abundant comeliness; for our 
comely parts have no need. But God hath tempered the 
body together, having given more abundant honor to that 
part which lacked, that there should be no schism in the 
_ body, but that the members should all have the same care 
one for another. And whether one member suffer, all the 
members suffer with it; or one member be honored, all 
the members rejoice with it. Now ye are the body of 
Christ, and members in particular.” 

If, now, we compare this splendid exhibition of the 
organic structure of society, and of the relations and duties 
of the different members of the organism, especially in re- 
spect to the honor here bestowed upon “the more feeble,” 
with the imperfect grasp of the idea by Plato and Aristo- 
tle, as in their condemnation of the laboring classes to hope- 
less degradation, we shall obtain a glimpse of the immeas- 


280 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


urable intellectual as well as moral superiority of Chris- 
tianity to heathenism, even when this latter is thus repre- 
sented by the greatest minds it ever produced. Here we 
see what a world-wide difference there is between the views 
which are given us in the Holy Scriptures with respect to 
those members of society “which we think to be less honor- 
able,” and those which were inculeated by heathen philoso- 
phy: and, assuredly, there would be fewer infidels among 
the laboring masses, if they only knew how much they 
are indebted to the Christian religion. 

Here, then, we may take occasion to lay down a funda- 
mental principle of method in social science, as we may 
hope that one day it will come to be exhibited. This con- 
sists in the application of the moral laws of Christianity to 
the solution of all the social, but, especially, of the indus- 
trial problems. For however sceptical men may be with 
respect to the supernatural origin of our holy religion, they 
hardly ever fail to recognize the excellence of its moral 
laws; and the scientific value of these laws, as distinguished 
from their religious obligation, is illustrated in this science 
in an entirely new and striking manner. Hence we may 
confidently anticipate that this line of investigation will 
develop in time the crowning argument in the evidences 
of Christianity. For in an experience of many years’ 
teaching, we have found it the most effectual antidote to 
that distressing scepticism which is now so rife, even in 
the minds of ingenuous and thoughtful young men. But 
however this may be, in the application of these laws to 
the solution of the industrial and all the other social prob- 
lems—problems which agitate and divide the most ad- 
vanced thinkers of our time—we can feel that we touch 
bottom ; that we have struck the solid rock; and, building 
on this foundation, we can foresee that we shall be able in 
time to establish a science of society which time itself will 
never be able to overthrow. 

We proceed now to exhibit the organic structure of so- 


INSTITUTION AND ORGANIZATION OF SOCIETY 281 


ciety by means of the relations which its organs bear to 
their organism and to each other. Of these organs there 
are two classes, which we may characterize as vital and 
teleological. ‘The vital organs, in a sense analogous only 
to that which these words have in physiology, are the in- 
dividuals or living persons of which society is composed. 
The teleological organs are the institutions which embody 
and represent the general aims, objects, ends, for which 
society exists. 

Tirst, then, we consider the organic structure of society 
as depending upon its vital organs. And here we are im- 
mediately struck with the wonderful fact, that, among the 
innumerable individuals of the human race, no two can 
be found who are in all respects like each other. All 
human beings are either different from each other by na- 
ture, or they have by nature a capacity for facile differen- 
tiation. Each person has some peculiar characteristic, or 
quality, or capacity, or faculty, or combination of faculties, 
or degree of their development, in virtue of which he is 
adapted to do something which cannot be so well done, or 
to fill some place which cannot be so well filled, by any 
other person. One is endowed with great physical strength, 
another with superior intellectual ability ; one has a natural 
or acquired adaptation for recluse study, another for busi- 
ness and affairs; oné is born a poet, another becomes an 
orator. In so far as society depends upon the rational and 
moral nature in man, rather than upon animal instinct; in 
the degree in which it shapes itself and directs its energies 
to rational and moral aims, that is to say, just so far as it 
becomes distinctively human, do these individual differ- 
ences develop and manifest themselves, 

For the differences which exist by nature lead to diver- 
sity of occupations. It is natural for men and women to 
employ themselves differently. Men who are possessed of 
great’ physical endowments naturally apply themselves to 
those pursuits in which success depends upon such qualifi- 


282 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


cations. Those of superior intellectual powers, but, per- 
haps, of feeble health and strength, are naturally guided 
in their selection of employments by these special adapta- 
tions. The natural tendency in these matters is for every 
one to addict himself to that mode of life in which he feels 
himself most capable of achieving success. Differences of 
taste, also, and of outward circumstances, have much to do 
with this diversity of occupation. From some of these 
causes it was, no doubt, that “ Abel became a keeper of 
sheep, and Cain a tiller of the ground;” that “Jabal was 
the father of such as dwell in tents and have cattle ;” that 
“ Jubal was the father of all such as handle the harp and 
organ ...and Tubal-Cain was an instructor of every artif- 
icer in brass and iron.” 

Again, this diversification of employments reacts upon 
the natural differences from which it springs, and gives 
them a more copious development. For as each person 
occupies himself with some specialty, he becomes more 
specialized. In this way, the sailor and the farmer are dif- 
ferenced from each other by their peculiar modes of life in 
their physical forms, in the muscles which are most fully de- 
veloped, in their gait, features, language, mental faculties 
and habits, and even in their moral characters, to such a de- 
gree that it is almost impossible to mistake one for the other. 
A similar differentiation takes place from the almost infinite 
diversification of employments throughout the whole circle 
of every highly organized community, which is composed 
of farmers, millers, bakers, graziers, butchers, cooks, 
carpenters, masons, blacksmiths, white-smiths, spinners, 
weavers, tailors, shoemakers, hatters, merchants, bankers, 
shippers, sailors, engineers, brakemen, stokers, telegraph 
operators, lawyers, doctors, teachers, artists and clergymen— 
of these and numberless others engaged in special employ- 
mentsand pursuits in their endless subdivisions and branches. 
There is not one of these which does not exert a great influ- 
ence to differentiate the members of society from each other. 


INSTITUTION AND ORGANIZATION OF SOCIETY 983 


Moreover, these personal differences, both natural and 
acquired, and these different employments, are, in a won- 
derful manner, the counterparts and complements of each 
other, as, in the human organism, are the stomach, mouth, 
heart, lungs and senses. These counterpart and comple- 
mentary relations are the most pronounced and conspicuous 
between the two sexes; but they are similar, only in a lower 
degree, between the farmer and the miller, the miller and 
the baker, the baker and his customers ; between the iron- 
miner, the iron-manutacturer, the hardware-merchant and 
his customers ; between the merchant, the shipper and the 
railroad men, and so on throughout the whole vast circle 
of organized society. Thus, both the individuals and their 
employments are mutually adapted to, and fit into each 
other, like the carpenter’s tenons and mortices, the fans of 
dovetailing, the balls and sockets of the animal joints, 
and the sutures of the human skull. Hence we have one 
of the main sources of that intense attraction which binds 
society together, and which steadily increases as organiza- 
tion advances. Tor it is in virtue of these counterpart 
differences that the individual members of the social body 
are mutually interdependent, for supplying each other’s 
wants, by that all-comprehending system of exchanges 
which is inseparable from organization. 

Societary attraction from this source has often been il- 
lustrated by that association which naturally takes place 
between two beggars, one of whom is blind and the other 
lame, in which the blind man carries the lame on his 
shoulders, and the lame guides the steps of the blind, so 
that the eyes of one and the legs of the other serve for 
both. Also, it has been illustrated by a beautiful ana- 
logue in chemistry, as if even here nature were striving up- 
wards towards organization. For it is found that no two 
ultimate particles of matter which are precisely alike, that 
is, no two atoms of oxygen or of hydrogen, manifest any 
attraction for each other, but are mutually repellant. As 


284 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


soon, however, as we bring together unlike particles, atoms 
of oxygen and of hydrogen, under the proper conditions, 
they immediately rush into each other’s embrace and form 
a chemical combination. Moreover, as even unlike par- 
ticles will not combine in other than definite proportions, 
so many and no more of oxygen with so many and no 
more of hydrogen, so must there be a definite proportion 
or correspondence between these differences both in human 
beings and in their employments, in order that their 
mutual attraction should be developed, and the organiza- 
tion of society attain to its utmost fulness and complete- 
ness. So many tailors and no more can combine with so 
many shoemakers in any particular community. Where 
either of these trades is in excess, a portion of its members 
will be out of work, and ready to leave their place in 
~ search of employment elsewhere: and so it is in all the 
other specialties. But the more perfectly these differences 
correspond to each other in numbers and adaptations, the 
more completely does each individual find the supply of 
his deficiencies in the endowments and productions of the 
others, the stronger becomes the societary attraction, the 
more firmly is society dovetailed or sutured together, the 
higher its organization rises, and the nobler is the life 
which it develops and manifests. 

But the most beautiful example of all this we have in 
the marriage union, which is itself the most perfect of all 
the social organisms, as it is that from which society origi- 
nates and derives its organic nature. For marriage is 
wholly founded upon these counterpart and complementary 
differences in their most pronounced forms. ‘The two sexes 
differ from each other in a greater number of particulars, 
and these differences are more perfectly the counterparts 
and complements of each other, than in the case of any 
two individuals of the same sex. With respect to their 
physical forms and functions this is sufficiently obvious ; 
we need only to observe that here, as elsewhere, the outward 


INSTITUTION AND ORGANIZATION OF SOCIETY 985 


and material is the type of the inward and spiritual. For 
in man, the intellect predominates, in woman, the affec- 
tions ; and of the intellect itself, the reasoning or logical 
faculties are the more active and influential in man, the 
intuitive in woman. In man, strength and courage are 
distinguishing traits, in woman, patience and fortitude. 
Prudence is the stronger in man, whose governing motives 
arise from consideration of the fruit of actions, and from 
forecast of ends or objects to be attained ; faith and spirit- 
ual instincts and susceptibilities are the stronger in woman, 
whose most influential motives arise from the inward 
promptings of her heart. 

Now, it is from these counterpart and complementary 
differences that the two sexes, in the marriage union, are 
mutually dependent, that which is lacking in each being 
supplied from the fulness and overflow of the other. 
Hence arises that beautiful system of vital exchanges, 
that veritable communion of life, from which all subse- 
quent life originates, and in which, on both sides, “ it is 
more blessed to give than to receive.” For the woman is 
supported and defended by the superior strength and 
courage of her husband; the man is sustained and com- 
forted by the sympathy, patience and fortitude of his wife. 
He imparts to her of his prudence and forethought ; she to 
him of her faith and spiritual msight. Her reasoning 
faculties are strengthened and become clearer and steadier 
by communion with his understanding ; his intellect is in- 
formed and quickened by communion with her more direct 
and living intuitions, and his heart is warmed by the flame 
_ of her affections. These vital exchanges, moreover, are 
accompanied by others arising from the different employ- 
ments which are appropriate to men and women. And 
here, if we had space to develop it, we should find the 
ultimate solution of the whole woman question. or such, 
in general, are the differences established by God in the 
natures of man and woman, notwithstanding that, in defiance 


286 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


of nature, some men may be womanish, and some women 
manish. ‘Thus we see that the two sexes were created to 
live in organic relations to each other, as members of one 
organism, that is to say, in marriage, and that only in this 
relation can the highest development and well-being of 
either be attained. 

In fine, the mutual attraction between the sexes is due 
to these counterpart differences, apart from which and 
from the mutual dependence and exchanges to which they 
give rise, there were no place for love or marriage. In 
consequence of these, the sexual attraction is the strongest 
of all, and the marriage union is the closest, the most in- 
timate, the most perfectly organic, of all human associa- 
tions. Here it is that the organic structure of society 
comes forth, and discloses its true nature, in its most typi- 
cal form. for it is not, as is often supposed, those things 
in which men and women are most alike, but those in 
which they are the most different, which draw them to- 
gether. The proverb that “ like seeks its like” refers to 
more general resemblances than those now under consider- 
ation, such as those between creatures of the same species, 
apart from which, as we have seen, natural association 
cannot take place. But within the specific unity, it is 
contrast, rather than similarity, which is the great source 
of attraction between the sexes. Accordingly, it has been 
often observed, that marriages take place more frequently, 
are more fruitful and happy, and their offspring are more 
healthy in body and mind, between those who present 
strong contrasts, physical, intellectual and moral, than be- 
tween those who most resemble each other. For where 
the husband and wife are very much alike in their endow- 
ments, temperaments, tastes and habits, as in the case of 
near relatives, the marriage is seldom a happy one, and 
the proportion of feeble, defective, deformed and idiotic 
children is greater than in other marriages. “ Breed- 
ing in and in,” as is well known, causes animals to 


INSTITUTION AND ORGANIZATION OF SOCIETY I87 


degenerate. “Crossing the breed” expresses a physio- 
logical law which is of no less importance for the im- 
provement of mankind than of mere animals. This, 
surely, is a sufficient reason, though it is not the only one, 
for that prohibition of marriage between near relatives 
which we find in the laws of Moses, and in the codes of 
all civilized nations. Indeed, social arrangements to guard 
against such marriages extend almost as far back in time 
as we can trace the history of the human race. 

Thus, we see, it is in and through these counterpart dif- 
ferences in persons and in their ayocations that the organ- 
ization of society develops and perfects itself. Wherever 
they are comparatively few and indistinct, there we always 
find societary attraction feeble, and a low grade of social 
organization; there the people are undeveloped or de- 
graded, and often migratory in their character and habits, 
ready, on every slight occasion, to abandon country and 
kindred, and to form new associations. Hence the migra- 
tory tendencies of the Tartar and other nomadic tribes in 
all ages and countries. Hence those immense migrations 
of barbarians in the middle ages and in all preceding 
times. The great exodus of the Irish and Germanic peoples, 
in our day, is due to the loosening of the bonds of societary 
attraction from similar though not identical causes. In 
Germany, militarism, having come to predominate over all 
other social forces, acts as an electric battery to disintegrate 
society, and to expel the people from their homes and 
country. In Ireland, poverty has had much to do in pro- 
ducing a similar result, but this is not an adequate ex- 
planation. For there is nearly or quite as much pauperism 
in England, but the people do not emigrate in anything 
like an equal proportion. The more full explanation 
seems to be, that the diversified industries of Ireland have 
been destroyed by the overshadowing competition of 
English manufactures brought to bear upon them through 
the existing political union between the two countries. 


288 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


From this cause, the Irish have long been mostly confined 
to one form of industry, that of agriculture, in conse- 
quence of which, their individual differences have merged 
in one common type of degradation; for the emigrants 
are so much alike that no one can fail to recognize them 
wherever they are seen. Hence the decay of the organic 
structure of society, the loosening of the bonds of society, 
and the scattering of the Irish people over the world. 

The organization of society perfects and crowns itself by 
that vast system of mutual exchanges between its interde- 
pendent organs which flows from their counterpart differences. 
We have a perfect type of these exchanges, as we have seen, 
in the human organism, wherein the hands provide for the 
mouth, the mouth prepares and passes the food to the 
stomach, and the stomach distributes it in the form of 
nourishment to all the other organs and parts of the body ; 
wherein, also, the eyes direct the feet, the feet bear the eyes 
from place to place, the brain supplies intelligence to the 
body, and the body blood to the brain. The great organic 
law of the whole is mutual interdependence, the supply of 
the wants of each organ by exchanges with all the others. 
Such, also, is the law of human society in the degree in 
which it attains to fulness and completeness of organiza- 
tion. For the personal quality, or capacity, or develop- 
ment which is deficient in one individual is more than 
adequate in another, and the wants of those who are en- 
gaged in the production of any one commodity are sup- 
plied by those who produce other commodities. Thus 
every one is dependent for the supply of his deficiencies 
upon the others, and each contributes something to com- 
plete the circle of endowments and productions in the 
social organism. For as each member of the human, so 
each member of the social body is indispensable to the 
full and perfect life of the whole. This is limited only 
by the case of a diseased organ, that is, a bad member of 
society, who, for the welfare of the body, must, in extreme 


INSTITUTION AND ORGANIZATION OF SOCIETY — 989 


cases, “ be cut off from his people.” But the analogy 
holds good here, as elsewhere, for the health and even the 
life of the human organism sometimes requires that a 
diseased member should be amputated, a diseased organ 
extirpated. Hence that deep and tender interest, as rep- 
resented by St. Paul, which each member of society is 
bound to feel in the safety and welfare of all the others ; 
for “if one member suffer all the members suffer with it.’ 
Here, also, we have the foundation of the great moral law: 
“Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Hence, in 
fine, we might anticipate what we always find, that only 
in the more highly organized communities is the life of 
the individual adequately protected: in low and feeble 
organizations, it goes for almost nothing. Recklessness of 
life, the bowie knife or the revolver always at hand, is an 
infallible sign of a low and feeble social organization, of 
an undeveloped or degraded humanity. 

The exchanges which take place in the most highly or- 
ganized societies are of various kinds, such as that of ideas, 
that of sympathy and affection, and that of services and 
commodities. In fact, the social life, in its whole devel- 
opment, is no less dependent upon the freedom, prompt- 
ness and regularity of these exchanges than is the life of the 
human organism upon the circulation of the blood; and 
they are always the most free and prompt and regular where 
the differences in persons, employments and productions 
are most numerous, marked and most perfectly the counter- 
parts and complements of each other. Each of these forms of 
exchange has its own place for detailed exposition in that 
vast scheme of social science which the analysis of the 
teleological organs of society will immediately give us; 
but here we can only touch, by way of example, upon the 
exchange of ideas, upon which depend, in a degree which 
cannot be overestimated, the increase and diffusion of 
knowledge, the development of the human faculties, and 
the progress of civilization. For it is the chief function 

13 


290 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


of oral speech, of writing and printing, and of language 
itself, as inclusive of all possible modes of symbolizing, 
representing and expressing thought. Intellectual life, 
no less than every other form of life in man, is essentially 
acommunion. Thought is begotten of thought by mutual 
intercourse of mind with mind, nor does it pass beyond the 
embryo-state, until it is brought forth in words or sym- 
bols, so as to communicate itself to other minds. No man 
perfectly understands himself until he is able to make 
himself understood by others, nor fully believes in his own 
ideas until he is able to express them so as to convince 
others of their truth. or, in the words of Novalis: “It 
is certain, however it may be explained, that when I have 
won another to believe as I do, I believe more strongly 
than I did before.” And by this form of exchange, the 
knowledge of each becomes available by all, and that of 
all by each, with comparatively little expense of time or 
labor. What I know I can communicate to another in a 
thousandth part of the time it has taken me to learn it, 
and that other, of course, can do the same for me. A 
bare hint is often enough to possess another mind with 
the fruitful germs of thought which it has taken the life- 
time of the author to originate and develop. Thus all 
parties to such exchanges profit by what they receive, and 
still more by what they give; for here, as everywhere else, 
“it is more blessed to give than to receive.” ‘Thus all are 
enriched in a twofold manner, and enter upon a new course 
of acquisition with all the advantages of an intellectual 
capital derived from their social intercourse, to bring back 
again, from time to time, into the social circle their ever- 
increasing treasures. 

It is in this way that the faculties of the members of a 
highly-organized community receive their richest nourish- 
ment and most varied culture, attain to their fullest 
growth, put forth their most beautiful bloom, and bear 
their noblest fruit. For the sum of knowledge in every 


INSTITUTION AND ORGANIZATION OF SOCIETY 991 


such society constitutes a common pabulum upon which 
the minds of individuals nourish themselves, or, to change 
the figure, their vital atmosphere by which they are in- 
vigorated, and their vision is extended and purified. From 
the almost infinite diversification of special studies and 
employments it results, that the knowledge of each indi- 
vidual upon any particular subject, such as health, agricul- 
ture, or maritime affairs, is immeasurably greater than it is 
where no one has ever made a specialty of medicine, farm- 
ing, or navigation, And this difference, which is just 
that between civilization and barbarism, applies not only 
to individuals but also to nations which stand in organic 
relations to other nations, as compared with those which 
keep themselves insulated from the rest of mankind. 
For in the degree in which communion between the dif- 
ferent nations becomes full and free, does the human race 
become one society, one organism, each member of which 
reaps the harvest of the studies, labors and progress of all 
the others. These relations, moreover, are not limited to 
any present time, but each succeeding generation inherits 
the accumulations of intellectual, moral and material capi- 
tal which have been stored up in all the past: and, hence, 
progress in all the elements of wealth, that is, of well- 
being, must be recognized as a fundamental law of man’s 
history upon the earth, than which no physical law is more 
amply verified and demonstrated by the number of facts 
which it co-ordinates and explains. 

Thus far we have been chiefly occupied with the organic 
relations of the individual members or organs of society 
to each other, although this conception of the social organ- 
ism is no less fruitful with respect to those between society 
itself and its organs. Here, however, we must content 
ourselves with two or three of the plainest inferences. 

The first is, that the individual does not exist for him- 
self, but for society, the organ for its organism. Con- 
sequently, every person is bound to have some higher ob- 


292 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


ject of life than a merely selfish one, and this object must 
be the welfare of the community of which he is a member. 
This is the principle which justifies men in sacrificing their 
lives for their country ; and the fact, that there have been 
so many and such heroic sacrifices for this object is abun- 
dant evidence that the principle lies deep in human nature, 
and often influences the actions of men, even where it has 
never been formally recognized by the intellect. Its prac- 
tical application in matters of industry would lead to this 
result, that every person, whatever his ayvocation, would 
aim to produce something which would promote the gen- 
eral welfare and prosperity, and would account nothing 
else honorable or lawful, however much it might seem to 
be for his own selfish interest. For an organ which should — 
aim to advance its own interest to the damage of its own 
organism would deserve and require to be exterminated. 
This grand result, however, belongs largely to the future 
of society, although the idea itself is a prophecy that one 
day it will be realized. 

Our second inference is, that the organism of society is 
clothed with the power of government over its own organs. 
How far it may be wise to exercise this power is a large 
question which here we cannot undertake to discuss. 
Doubtless the individual should have all the liberty which 
is consistent with the welfare of society. But what these 
limits to the exercise of governmental powers are, it is for 
society, not for the: individual, to determine. Also, these 
powers of government must be conceived of as extending 
to industrial matters, as well as to all others which are of 
general interest and concern. For what must we think 
of a man who should abnegate all control over his own 
organs, as to how they should be employed? Society, 
therefore, has a rightful authority to influence, by wise 
legislation and other means, the flow of industry; to 
“ protect” and cherish any particular branch of production, 
such as that of food, clothing, leather, iron, ships, books, 


INSTITUTION AND ORGANIZATION OF SOCIETY 993 


for which the country may afford peculiar resources and 
facilities, and which would be everyway beneficial ; as, also, 
to prohibit and suppress other occupations which, though 
they may seem to promote the interests of individuals, are 
generally demoralizing and detrimental to society, such as 
gambling, lotteries, the traffic in intoxicants, and prostitu- 
tion. That theory of civil government which requires 
that all industrial matters should be left to take care of 
themselves is irreconcilable with the conception of society 
as an organism, and it is one which is advocated chiefly by 
those who seek their own selfish interests at the expense of 
others, and by the strong in order that they may be left 
free to break down and destroy the weak. 

Our third inference is, that society is bound to educate, 
defend and provide employment, where it may be neces- 
sary, for its members. For what must we think of a man 
who should neglect to educate and train his own organs to 
any useful work, or who should fail to see that they have 
work to do, or to defend them in their proper functions 
when assaulted by hostile forces, or who should renounce 
the care of them in disease and infirmity? We must think 
the same of every community which renounces or neglects 
these high functions and sacred duties to its members, for 
which society was instituted of God, and exists among 
men. For the right of the poor to labor is simply their 
right to live. And this idea strikes deeply into our present 
system of governmental education, which turns out our 
youth, at a time when they are exposed to their greatest 
temptations, utterly unskilled to do anything with their 
hands, with which the great body of them must earn their 
living, or starve, or steal, instead of teaching them some 
art or trade to enable them to support themselves by their 
honest labor. 

We come now, in conclusion, to the analysis of the teleo- 
logical organs of society, which are, as we have stated, the 
institutions that embody and represent the special aims or 


294 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


ends of social life, and the means by which these aims are 
realized. 

We observe, then, that the most general or comprehen- 
sive object for which society was instituted among men, is 
the welfare or well-being of mankind. For it originated, 
as we have seen, in the creation of woman, concerning 
which God said: “It is not good for man to be alone.” 
It is true, this was spoken with primary reference to mar- 
riage, but yet to this form of association considered, not 
only in itself, but also as the fountain-head of those streams 
of life and population which contain the elements of all 
society. Now the well-being of man consists in the satis- 
faction of all his natural wants, and in the gratification of 
all his lawful and ordinate desires. These wants and de- 
sires, under a rigorous analysis, resolve themselves into six 
classes, comprehending six special aims of society, corre- 
sponding to which we have six classes of institutions for 
the attainment of these aims and the satisfaction of these 
wants. The first want is that of society itself, or social 
intercourse, which seeks its gratification through the insti- 
tution of marriage and the offspring thence derived : the 
second is the want of education, which is supplied through 
the family and all other educational institutions ; the third 
includes all the material wants, for the supply of which 
are all the institutions of industry ; the fourth is the want 
of justice and order in society, to satisfy which is the great 
end or object of the institutions of civil government; the 
fifth comprises all those wants which spring from the love 
of the beautiful, and these seek their gratification through 
the institutions and appliances of art; the sixth is that of 
the religious wants, which are supplied through the insti- 
tutions of religion. These six classes of institutions, for 
the reason that they represent the special objects for which 
society exists, are here characterized as its teleological 
organs. 

1, The first of these is that of marriage, of which the 


INSTITUTION AND ORGANIZATION OF SOCIETY 995 


great end or aim is the pro-creation of human beings for 
the satisfaction of the want of society itself, and which, as 
it was the first in time, so also is it the first in importance, 
of all the social institutions. It was for this object prima- 
rily that God created man male and female, and blessed 
them, saying: “ Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish 
the earth.” Hence the paramount importance of the insti- 
tution, which is illustrated, also, by the subjects which are 
included under it, which are such as the following: The 
fundamental laws of marriage, as laid down in the word 
of God, and in the nature of man; its influence upon hu- 
man well-being and happiness, according as these laws are 
observed, and the evils which flow from their violation by 
promiscuous intercourse, adultery, polygamy, intermarriage 
of near relatives, and unlawful divorce; population—the 
causes, laws and consequences to human welfare of its in- 
crease and decline; the organic nature of marriage, and 
the mutual exchanges to which it gives rise within itself, 
and in its relations to the other teleological organs. In 
the discussion of these subjects, we find that the true doc- 
trine of marriage is the chief corner-stone of the whole 
edifice of social science. 

2. The second of these teleological organs includes all 
the educational institutions of society, at the head of which 
stands the family. For the family cannot be comprehended 
in its true nature and objects otherwise than as an educa- 
tional institution. This above all others is the object for 
which “ God setteth the solitary in families.” But educa- 
tion here must be taken in its most comprehensive sense, 
as that the object of which is to satisfy the human want of 
development—the development of all the physical and 
mental faculties, not only in children and youth, but also 
in men and women throughout the whole of life, and not 
only in individuals, but algo in the race at large. Conse- 
quently the institutions of education are, not only schools, 
colleges and universities, but also learned societies, the 


296 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


public press, lyceums, public lectures, and whatever is 
adapted to promote the increase and diffusion of knowledge 
and the development of the human faculties. Under this 
head we have, therefore, a vast range of subjects, the inter- 
est of which is constantly increasing, and which have never 
yet been treated as a whole. These are such as the follow- 
ing: The organic nature of the family and of all other 
educational institutions in their interior relations, in those 
which they bear to the other teleological organs, and to 
society itself; the education of children and youth of both 
sexes, together with the methods and means by which this 
object can best be attained; the education of adults, the 
chief object of which is the development of particular 
faculties and special aptitudes for the practice of different 
trades, arts, professionsand pursuits, together with the means 
by which this object can be the most perfectly realized ; in 
fine, the education of society itself, regarded as a self-per- 
peéuating and ever-progressive form of organic life, the 
object of which is the development and culture of humanity 
to its highest attainable perfection and final destiny. 

3. The third of these organs includes all the institutions 
of industry for the satisfaction of the want in man of 
material well-being. This form of wealth resolves itself, 
in the last analysis, into human control over the forces of 
nature and the properties of matter; and the attainment 
of it is the third special aim of society, as Divinely pre- 
scribed to man in the words: “ Be fruitful, and multiply, 
and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have domin- 
ion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, 
and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” 
Here nature in its utmost extent is given to man, and he is 
commanded, through his associated energies and activities, 
to subdue it to his own uses and ends. Thus-he is author- 
ized by his Maker to acquire and possess material wealth, 
and is directed to the only source from which it can be 
procured, that is, the subjugation of nature. The sub- 


INSTITUTION AND ORGANIZATION OF SOCIETY 297 


jects included under this head, together with those under 
the first, constitute nearly the whole of that special depart- 
ment of social science which is called political economy. 
Those which require to be enumerated here are the follow- 
ing: ‘The nature of material wealth ; value and its meas- 
ures; the distinction between national and individual wealth 
—the former consisting in the sum of utilities, the latter 
in yalues; the production of wealth, the wealth-produc- 
ing power, that is, labor, skilled and unskilled, free and 
slave ; division and organization of labor; the industrial 
arts, capital and wages ; the instruments of production— 
tools, machinery and the domesticated animals; agricul- 
ture, or the occupation and improvement of land, the pro- 
duction of food and raw materials, land-tenures and rent; 
mines, forests and fisheries; manufactures, or the produc- 
tion of finished commodities; the distribution of wealth— 
commerce, home and foreign trade, free-trade and protec- 
tion, diversification of industry, political and industrial in- 
dependence of nations ; roads, canals, rivers and harbors; 
the media of exchange—money, credit, banks; checks 
upon the production and distribution of wealth, such as 
war and taxation ; the organic relations of all the institu- 
tions and branches of industry to each other, to the other 
teleological organs, and to society itself as the all-compre- 
hending organism. 

4, The fourth in order of these organs includes all the 
institutions and appliances of art, that is to say, the beau- 
tiful or fine arts, the object of which is the satisfaction of 
those wants in man which arise out of his susceptibility to 
the charms of beauty. Under this head we have the fol- 
lowing and kindred subjects: The importance of art- 
culture to the welfare, happiness and perfection of man ; 
the influence of poetry, music, sculpture, painting, archi- 
tecture, the drama, public spectacles and amusements upon 
individual and national character; means for the promo- 


tion of art, and for the culture of the esthetic faculties: 
13* 


298 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


the significance of great municipal and national monu- 
ments of art, and its organic relations, 

d. The fifth of these organs includes all the institutions 
of civil government, the object of which is the realization 
of justice, order and general prosperity in society. In this 
department of social science, we have the following and 
kindred subjects: The nature, objects, powers and func- 
tions of government ; laws—municipal, constitutional, in- 
ternational ; the history of government from its origin in 
tribal associations through all its successive developments 
and forms—patriarchal, monarchical, despotic, aristocratic, 
republican, democratic and mixed; the progress of civil 
liberty, development of free institutions, and the organic 
relations of this to the other organs and to society, and of 
the different nations of the world to each other. 

6. The sixth and last of these organs of society com- 
prises the institutions of religion. For religion is an 
essential and fundamental element of human nature, and 
the want of communion with God is an original want of 
the human soul, without the supply of which never yet 
has it been, nor ever can it be well with man. Religion, 
moreover, is essentially a social principle; pre-eminently 
the religious life as a communion; solitary asceticism is a 
wretched abuse of the moral and spiritual nature. Hence 
it is one of the special aims of society to make provision 
for the supply of this want by institutions for social wor- 
ship, and for the communion of the worshippers with each 
other. Under this head, although it has never before been 
included in any scheme of social science, we have all the 
subjects which pertain to religion socially considered. 

The foregoing analysis of the lawful and ordinate wants 
of man in the supply of which his welfare consists, and 
of the corresponding aims of society to supply these wants, 
and of the organs or institutions which embody and rep- 
resent these aims, and through which they are realized— 
this analysis is intended to be exhaustive, and to furnish 


INSTITUTION AND ORGANIZATION OF SOCIETY 999 


a scheme for the classification and exposition of all the 
phenomena of organic society. For there is no social fact 
or interest which does not naturally range itself under one 
or other of these comprehensive divisions. Of course, 
however, it does not lie in the power of any one man to 
fill out this vast scheme. 


Ach, Gott, art ist lange und kurtz ist unser leben! 


The laborers also as yet are comparatively few in this 
great harvest-field ; but they are constantly increasing, and 
each one who faithfully cultivates any little nook or corner 
of it contributes something to the crowning result, which 
must in time be realized. Hitherto, indeed, in this, as in 
every other department of knowledge, human progress has 
been painfully retarded by an enormous growth of prema- 
ture theories, with comparatively but little of harvested 
truth ; for crude theorizing has distorted, perverted, and 
even denied many of the most obvious and significant facts 
of social life. But all this must in time give way to the 
scientific methods of observation and induction, which 
have already led to the most encouraging results; nor 
have we any reason to doubt but that this most compre- 
hensive and most human of all the sciences will prove 
hereafter as productive of welfare and blessing to mankind 
as it is now full of promise and of hope. 


XV 
POPULATION 


And God blessed them: and God said unto them, Be fruitful, 
and multiply, and replenish the earth. 


Tuts fruitfulness which was conferred on the first 
human pair, and through them upon mankind, is here 
declared to be a blessing. That it is truly such would 
seem to be indisputable when we consider that life is the 
one indispensable condition of all other blessings. Yet, 
perhaps, there is no declaration of the word of God against 
which more has been written, or which is still more confi- 
dently denied. For it has been strenuously maintained, 
and it is yet extensively believed, that this fruitfulness of 
the human race is a tremendous curse, and the cause of 
almost all the pauperism and degradation in the world. 
In support of this view, it is claimed by a whole school 
of political economists, that the constant relation between 
the natural increase of population and the possible supply 
of food is such that the earth’s productions necessarily 
tend to become less and less adequate to the support of its 
inhabitants. But we affirm that this statement rests upon 
mere speculation and analogy, and is contrary to all the 
facts of human experience; and this, we are persuaded, 
can be shown to the satisfaction of every candid mind. 

In the first place, then, there is a strong antecedent prob- 
ability against this speculation. In other words, there are 
rational grounds for a strong presumption that the Creator 
and Father of mankind, in His infinite fulness of wisdom, 


power and goodness, ‘whom giving does not impoverish 
300 


POPULATION 201 


nor withholding enrich,’ has made ample provision for all 
the real necessities of His human children. This pre- 
sumption, moreover, is confirmed by the acknowledged 
fact, that all these wants, unless that of food be an excep- 
tion, have been actually provided for with a bountiful 
liberality. For the human powers of procreation are ac- 
knowledged to be ample for the supply of man’s want of 
society, or communion with his kind. For the satisfaction 
of our intellectual wants, we have all the facts and laws 
of nature, and the whole universe of truth and possible 
knowledge, in which no one has ever been mad enough to 
anticipate any deficiency. And for the supply of our moral 
and spiritual wants, we have all God’s revelations of him- 
self and of the spiritual world in His word, in His works 
of creation and providence, and in our souls—revelations 
which are absolutely inexhaustible. In fine, with respect 
to all our other physical wants, no deficiency of supply is 
ever supposed. All analogy, therefore, seems to warrant 
us in the belief that our heavenly Father has made pro- 
vision for this lowest yet most urgent necessity—that of 
food—with equal liberality. It seems irrational and even 
monstrous to suppose that an inordinate bounty on His 
part in supplying man’s want of communion with his 
kind should have led Him to endow the procreative 
powers in such excess that all the treasures of the earth, 
air and waters must be totally inadequate to the supply of 
food, and that consequently an ever-increasing proportion 
of human beings must perish from starvation. 

This argument, however, is only presumptive, and may 
not be regarded as sufficient to refute the analogies on 
which the counter-presumption of necessary starvation 1s 
itself chiefly founded. Among these, that which has exerted 
the greatest influence of late is drawn from the lower or- 
eanisms—animals and plants—among which, it is urged, 
. “a struggle for existence” is constantly going on, in which 
all the weaker organisms perish, and only the stronger 


302 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


survive. This has been exhibited in elaborate detail by 
the followers of the late Charles Darwin, and by himself 
as follows: 

“A struggle for existence inevitably follows from the 
high rate at which all organic beings tend to increase. 
Every being which, during its natural lifetime, produces 
several egos or seeds must suffer destruction during some 
period of its life, or during some season or occasional 
year ; otherwise, on the principle of geometrical increase, 
its numbers would soon become so inordinately great that 
no country could support the product. Hence, as more 
individuals are produced than can possibly survive, there 
must in every case be a struggle for existence, either one 
individual with another of the same species, or with the in- 
dividuals of a distinct species, or with the physical condi- 
tions of life. It is the doctrine of Malthus applied with 
manifold force to the whole animal and vegetable king- 
doms; for, in this case, there can be no artificial increase 
of food, and no prudential restraint upon marriage. Al|- 
though some species may be now increasing more or less 
rapidly in numbers, all cannot do so, for the world would 
not hold them.’’* 

Now, although this may all be true of the lower organ- 
isms, it does not follow that it must be true of the highest 
of all, that is, man. If there be in the human world a 
struggle for existence similar to that which is here repre- 
sented as prevailing in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, 
it must be proved by’other arguments than this, and by 
such as are very different from any which analogy can fur- 
nish. For, evidently, there may be good reasons why it 
should prevail in the lower, and not in the higher realms 
of organic life; and one reason for the creation of lower 
organisms in such numbers that they cannot all live is ob- 
vious, namely, that vegetables are intended to serve as food 


* Darwin’s Origin of Species, p. 63. 


POPULATION 203 


for animals and men, and animals as food for men and for 
each other. But human beings are not created to become 
food for each other, nor for the animals. For aught that 
appears, they were intended to live out the full term of 
their natural lives. The analogy, therefore, does not war- 
rant us to anticipate anything like so high a rate of increase 
for human beings as for other creatures. Accordingly we 
actually find it an indisputable law of organic development, 
that the lower forms of life increase and multiply with im- 
mensely greater rapidity than the higher. For no human 
pair can produce more than a few offspring, whilst a single 
fish-spawn contains literally millions of germs. Also we 
find that, among animals themselves, those which serve as 
food for others have commonly a higher rate of increase 
than those which prey upon them. The Greek historian, 
Herodotus, has an observation upon this point which seems 
worthy of being reproduced here; for in explanation of 
the causes which prevented the rapid multiplication of 
serpents in Arabia, he says: “I myself have observed this 
law of animal life, that the wise providence of God has 
made those creatures which are good for food very fruitful, 
as the hare, but those which are noxious, incapable of rapid 
multiplication, as the lion.”* or these and other similar 
reasons it may be, notwithstanding this analogy, that the 
human powers of procreation shall be found at last no 
more than adequate to supply the want of society, and to 
“replenish the earth and subdue it.” 

In the above quotation from Darwin, this theory of the 
relation between population and food is called “the doc- 
trine of Malthus,” for the reason that it originated with 
that celebrated author. But Malthus does not base it upon 
the preceding analogy, although, since his day, this has 
contributed more than all other arguments to its credibility 
and acceptance. He lays it down as a principle which 


* Herodotus, Book III. 107-109. 


304 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


requires no proof, that the production of food can never 
increase faster than in an arithmetical ratio, 7. e. as 1, 2, 3, 
4, 5,6; and that population naturally increases in a geo- 
metrical ratio, 7. e. as 2, 4, 8, 16, 32. Now this princi- 
ple is assumed by all his disciples as incontrovertible. We 
here deny it in both of its branches. We affirm that it 
rests upon purely speculative and hypothetical grounds. 
It has never been proved—the proof of it has never been 
formally attempted—it is incapable of proof. For, in the 
first place, no one has ever attempted to determine, in a 
scientific manner, the law of increase in the production of 
food of which the earth, air and waters are capable. The 
loose and general statements of Malthus himself do not 
even suggest the possibility of a scientific solution of the 
problem; and he makes no account whatever of the vast 
resources of modern agricultural chemistry, nor of the at- 
mosphere as an inexhaustible storehouse of nourishment 
for the support of organized beings, of which he was ne- 
cessarily ignorant. Nor have his followers, strange as it 
may appear, contributed anything to supply his deficiencies 
in this respect. For aught that appears, then, the increase 
in the production of food may be much greater than in an 
arithmetical ratio. In the second place, there are a great 
many natural checks upon the increase of population, from 
which no portion of the human race has ever been free, 
and which have never been determined in their number 
and efficiency. In the present state of our knowledge, 
they are incapable of being so determined. How, then, is 
it possible to establish a law of the increase of human 
beings in circumstances in which they have never been 
placed? Hence, for aught that appears, their natural in- 
crease may be much less than in a geometrical ratio. 

But, if it be conceded that the procreative powers of 
mankind, being conceived of as adequate to populate the 
whole earth from a single pair, must needs, if unchecked, 
tend to over-population, it does not follow that the required 


POPULATION 8305 


restraints must come from the want of food. For other 
checks, which are in constant operation, may be amply suf- 
ficient to the end of time; and, if not, others still of greater 
efficiency may be developed as population advances. The 
all-wise Creator, who, by the operation of His immutable 
laws, stored away the coal in the earth thousands of years 
ago to meet the want which should arise from the destruc- 
tion of the forests, and the rock oil to be discovered when 
the whale should have begun to disappear, may have im- 
planted in the human constitution itself just those checks 
upon the increase of population which may be required 
hereafter, and which shall be developed at the proper time, 
when the waste lands of the globe shall be fully occupied 
and tilled to their utmost capacity of production. Some 
such pre-arrangement would be in perfect analogy with 
the wonderful facility which the physical constitution of 
man has always exhibited in adapting itself to the ever- 
varying circumstances and conditions of his earthly life, 
and is just what we might expect from the infinite wisdom, 
power and goodness of his Maker. 

The advocates of this doctrine, however, shut themselves 
up within much narrower limits than would be allowed 
them by the geometrical ratio of the increase of population 
and the arithmetical ratio of the increase of food. They 
undertake to show that this latter can never be so great, 
except, perhaps, for a very short time, and in exceptional 
circumstances, and that all the resources of emigration, 
whilst the greatest abundance of unoccupied land remains, 
are totally inadequate to supply the want of food which 
arises from over-population. These views are founded 
upon a certain theory of the rent of land, which was 
broached by obscure writers who preceded Malthus, which 
was adopted by him, and which was subsequently taken 
up by Mr. Ricardo, and formulated with detailed applica- 
tions. Hence it has come to be almost exclusively asso- 
ciated with Ricardo’s name. Presented in his own words, 
it is as follows: 


306 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


“On the first settlement of a country in which there is 
an abundance of rich and fertile land, a very small propor- 
tion of which is required to be cultivated for the support 
of the actual population, or, indeed, can be cultivated with 
the capital which the population can command, there will 
be no rent; for no one would pay for the use of land when 
there was an abundant quantity not yet appropriated, and, 
therefore, at the disposal of whosoever might choose to 
cultivate it. On the common principle of supply and de- 
mand, no rent could be paid for such land... When, in the 
progress of society, land of the second degree of fertility is 
taken into cultivation, rent immediately commences on 
that of the first quality, and the amount of that rent will 
depend on the difference in the quality of these two por- 
tions of land. When land of the third quality is taken 
into cultivation, rent immediately commences on the second, 
and it is regulated as before by the difference in their pro- 
ductive powers. At the same time, the rent of the first 
quality will rise, for that must always be above the rent of 
the second by the difference between the produce which 
they yield with a given quantity of capital and labor. 
With every step of the progress of population, which shall 
oblige a country to have recourse to land of a worse quality 
to enable it to raise its supplies of food, rent on all the 
more fertile land will rise.” * 

Such, then, is Ricardo’s world-famous theory of rent, 
which has been vaunted by great authorities as the most 
important contribution to political economy made since 
the time of Adam Smith, and upon which this doctrine of 
starvation is founded. J. Stewart Mill, one of the most 
authoritative writers on this subject, speaks of it in the 
following words: ‘This general law of agricultural indus- 
try is the most important principle in political economy, 


* Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, by David Ricardo, 
Esq., London, 1817, pp. 52-55. 


POPULATION 807 


Were the law different, nearly all the phenomena of the 
production and distribution of wealth would be different.” 
Let these statements be borne in mind, for if it can be 
shown that there is no such law, the Ate system of the 
production and distribution of wealth which is here founded 
on it must fall to the ground. 

Now the first and most obvious objection to it is, that it 
is altogether hypothetical and speculative, a pure @ priort 
Heinen an assumption without a shadow of proof. Its 
authors and supporters rest it wholly on the antecedent 
probability. They simply assert that men, being rational, 
would choose and settle first on the richest inne ; eran 
they always have done, and always will do so. Not one 
of them seems ever to have thought of examining into the 
history of new settlements to see in what order superior 
and inferior soils have actually been occupied. If they 
had made such an historical examination, they would have 
found, as we shall presently see, that their assumption was 
directly opposed to.all the facts of the case. Here, then, 
is a great system of political economy vauntingly founded 
ona purely speculative notion, an unwarranted assumption. 

The second objection is, that a precisely opposite assump- 
tion may be made to appear quite as plausible, and, indeed, 
far more probable, on similar @ priori grounds. Let us 
look at some of these for a moment. 

For when men come to settle in new countries, they are 
necessarily few in numbers, and are comparatively destitute of 
capital and the appliances of civilization. If the first oc- 
cupants be a tribe of savages, which commonly has been 
the case, they support themselves by hunting and fishing, 
after that by pasturage, and do not till the ground at all, 
or only in the feeblest manner. Under such conditions, 
population is necessarily very sparse. or it has been 
roughly computed that one half-acre of cultivated land will 
furnish as much food as eight hundred acres of forest and 
stream to hunters and fishers. When cultivation begins 


308 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


under any circumstances, farming implements are of the 
rudest construction, and even these are difficult to be ob- 
tained. The sparseness of population precludes the mass- 
ing of numbers in co-operation for the accomplishment of 
great agricultural enterprises. Consequently, the first prac- 
tical question for new settlers is, not where they can find 
the deepest and richest soils, but where it is possible for 
them, with their rude implements and paucity of numbers, 
to overcome the resistance of nature, and to eke out a bare 
subsistence for themselves and their families. And this 
resistance of nature is always greatest where her strength 
is greatest, 7. e. where the soil is richest. Dank and pes- 
tilential vapors fill the valleys, whose natural growths also 
are the heaviest timber or impenetrable jungles, the cover 
of ferocious beasts and noxious reptiles. Here a vast work 
of clearing and draining must be done before the soil can 
be rendered productive of food for man, to which the force 
of new-settlers is totally inadequate ; and if it were other- 
wise, they and their families would probably be cut off 
the first year by the malaria which floats along the slug- 
gish streams. The next best soils extend for some distance 
up the sides of the valleys and lower slopes of the hills. 
But, here also, the timber is commonly too heavy to be 
cleared away by the new-settler’s imperfect tools and inad- 
equate force of numbers. Hence, whatever may be his 
wishes, he is compelled to pass by these also, and to com- 
mence the work of cultivation upon the light and thin soils 
of the upland slopes, where there is no malaria, no heavy 
timber, nor thick jungle, where no drainage is required, 
where the soil can be immediately worked with his inade- 
quate force and implements, and where it will afford him 
the speediest though scanty returns—* returns, however, 
which are immeasurably in advance of all that could be 
obtained by his savage or nomad predecessors, who roamed 
over a thousand times greater space, and depastured the 
natural grasses with their flocks and herds.” 


POPULATION 309 


Now ‘it is the first step which costs.’ For when the 
new-settler’s first crop is gathered from his thin soil, he 
has, notwithstanding, a store which will last him till the 
next harvest, and which gives him some leisure to improve 
his tools and accommodations. This improvement, and the 
natural increase of his live stock, render the next year’s 
labors somewhat more productive: and thus, year by year, 
he is enabled more thoroughly to till the ground, still 
further to improve his agricultural implements, to clear 
more and better land, and to extend his plantation. In 
the meantime, his children are growing up around him, 
taking part in his labors, and increasing his force, by whose 
aid he is now enabled to clear away heavier timber, and to 
bring under cultivation deeper and richer soil. Thus we 
see that, as population advances from generation to genera- 
tion, the progress of settlement and tillage is naturally 
from lighter and poorer soils to those which are heavier 
and richer, which extend down into the swamps and bot- 
toms of the valleys. The richest lands, where the strength 
and resistance of nature are greatest, where a gigantic work 
of clearing and draining is indispensable, must needs be 
the last which are reached, when population has become 
the most dense, and appliances of civilization the most nu- 
merous and efficient. 

Such, in brief, is the @ priori argument which is opposed 
to the assumption upon which Ricardo’s theory is founded. 
Certainly it is no less probable than that which it is ad- 
duced to refute, and a system of political economy of an 
entirely opposite character might be as legitimately built 
upon it. But, thus far, we have only one 4 priort theory 
set off against another; and whatever is worthy of the 
name of science can make no further use of such specula- 
tions than to raise from them the inquiry whether the con- 
clusions to which they point are, or are not, in accordance 
with observed and verified facts. Hence it is necessary to 
inquire here, what has been the actual history of new set- 


310 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


tlements? Do the facts of the case show that they have 
been made on the ricber or poorer soils? Have increasing 
populations proceeded from the former to the latter, or from 
the latter to the former ? 

The first writer who undertook to submit Ricardo’s 
theory to the test of facts was Henry C. Carey. In his 
Principles of Social Science, he has given us a vast his- 
torical induction, in the course of which he traces the his- 
tory of new settlements in the United States and their 
territories, in Mexico, South America, the West Indies, 
Canada, Great Britain, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, 
and most other countries, wherever any facts bearing on 
this subject are accessible. It is impossible here to do 
any sort of justice to this splendid historical argument. 
It should be read and studied by every one in the author’s 
own works. But a few indisputable facts, as examples, 
may be here enumerated. 

In England, then, those parts of the country which, in 
the time of Richard cur de lion, were forests and swamps 
are now under the highest and most productive cultiva- 
tion. ‘The morasses of South Lancastershire, which had 
nearly swallowed up the army of William the Conqueror, 
are now among the most productive lands of the kingdom. 
The Lincoln Fens, which Cromwell tried to drain by the 
labor of his Dutch prisoners, and failed, together with the 
border counties between England and Scotland, which two 
centuries ago were ‘the haunt and refuge of “the bold 
moss trooper,’ are now drained by wind and steam hy- 
draulics, and are proverbial for their fertility. Every- 
where the lands most recently brought under cultivation 
are those which have required the heaviest outlay of 
capital, especially in the form of machinery, to reclaim 
them. Such lands, in general, were totally irreclaimable 
before the invention of the steam-engine. Even on the 
prairies of the United States and Territories, where there 
is no timber nor jungle, it is found that the lightest soils 


POPULATION 811 


are first occupied, and the heaviest not until population 
has much increased.* In general, we find on examination 
of the facts that the most productive soils are not brought 
under cultivation, except where population has become 
dense ; where it is sparse, tillage recedes from the river- 
banks, and runs along the ridges and crests of the hills ; 
in proof of which, we see, also, that the old roads wind 
from hill-top to hill-top, regardless of the increased dis- 
tance, and of the labor of ascent and descent, connecting 
the scattered villages and sparse settlements: whilst the 
modern railway connects great cities, plunging through 
forests and swamps, wholly or comparatively destitute of 
population, which, however, soon follows its course, until 
the jungle and timber are cleared away, the swamps 
drained, and villages, towns and cities take their place. 
In this way, the deepest, heaviest and most productive 
soils are last. brought under cultivation. 

The result of this examination demonstrates that 
Ricardo’s theory of the occupation of land cannot stand 
the test of indisputable facts, and that its precise contrary 
is true. This conclusion, moreover, is confirmed, and the 
whole Malthusian doctrine of starvation is refuted, by 
another class of facts of still greater significance. ‘These 
are brought out by the question, whether increasing popu- 
lations have actually produced and enjoyed a decreasing 
proportion of food for each mouth? For it is easy to 
show that precisely the opposite of this is true. 

Ricardo’s theory, then, as applied by himself and ac- 


* “The soil of the dry prairie is from twelve to eighteen inches deep... 
the wet prairie in general much deeper, and the alluvion of the river-bot- 
toms often of astonishing depth.... To constitute dry prairie it must be 
rolling. Between the waves of this great ocean .... are the sloughs, the 
terror of the early emigrant, and the most valued possession of his suc- 
cessor.... These sloughs are the drains of the dry prairie.... Many 
small tracts known as wet prairie fifteen years ago, and rejected by the 
first settlers, are now brought under cultivation.” —Report of the American 
Pomological Society, 1849. 


312 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


cepted by all Malthusians, gives us the following results : 
A colony, suppose of one hundred persons in families, 
settle in a new country on the richest land it affords, which 
yields them, for the first crop, say, 1000 bushels of wheat, 
ten bushels for each mouth. In 25 years, the population, 
say, will have doubled, which will require them to culti- 
vate a double portion of land, the additional part of which 
must, of course, be of inferior quality. This yields, say, 
900 bushels, giving for the whole crop 1900 bushels, and 
but 9.5 bushels for each mouth. Another 25 years, popu- 
lation again doubled, amounting to 400 persons, requiring 
double the quantity of land, the addition being of still 
inferior quality. The whole crop now is 3500 bushels, 
yielding 8.75 bushels for each mouth. Still another 25 
years, population 800, food 7.8 bushels for each mouth. 
Thus we have a constantly decreasing proportion of food 
as population advances. Now all this is on the most 
favorable supposition which the theory allows, namely, 
that each person of the 800 occupies as much land as did 
each of the 100 at first. But if the land be limited in 
quantity, so that the increased population cannot obtain 
as much of it as their ancestors occupied, this decrease in 
the proportion of food for each mouth must be in so far 
accelerated, and, still further, by the tendency (assumed by 
all these writers) of cultivation to exhaust the natural 
fertility of the soil. Such are the inevitable and ac- 
knowledged consequences of the theory. 

Now, upon examination of the facts of the case, no 
such consequences appear in the history of increasing 
populations, but the contrary, namely, that increasing 
populations produce an increasing amount of food for each 
mouth. Here, also, Mr. Carey has given us a vast and 
splendid historical induction, of which only a few facts 
can be mentioned here as examples. 

Upon this question, we have the best information con- 
cerning France from the time of Louis XIV, 1700 to 


POPULATION 313 


Louis Philippe, 1840, a period of 140 years, for which 
the tables compiled by the head of the statistical bureau 
of the government give us the following facts: 1. The 
whole population of the country nearly doubled—lacking 
only 3,000,000. 2. The whole product of food nearly 
quadrupled : in other words, a population less than twice 
as dense produced four times as much food, and, conse- 
quently, more than twice as much for each mouth. 

But it is of importance, also, that we should know how 
this increased product of food was actually distributed, and 
what, during this time, was the condition of the poor. 
From these tables, then, we find that the landlords and 
capitalists received in 1700 for their share of the whole 
product, two-thirds of it, or twice as much as the laborers, 
the actual tillers of the soil, whilst, in 1840, these latter re- 
ceived three-fifths of the whole, one-fifth more than the 
landlords and capitalists. This, however, does not indicate 
that the landlords received less in absolute amount; for so 
great was the increased production during this interval that 
in 1840 two-fifths of the whole were far greater in absolute 
amount than were three-fifths in 1700. Notwithstanding, 
or rather because the laborers were so much better paid, 
the absolute amount received by the non-agricultural por- 
tion of the people increased one hundred and twenty-seven 
per centum, whilst their numbers had only doubled. Again, 
the whole cost of cultivating the soil during this period, in- 
creased more than seven fia the proportion of this which 
was paid in wages nearly doubled; the proportion for each 
individual nearly trebled ; and the daily wages received by 
each individual of the Pculinell families nearly quadru- 
pled. Once more, the wages of an agricultural family in 1700 
were one hundred and thirty-five franks per year, whilst the 
cost of wheat enough to give them bread was two hundred 
and fifty-four franks, leaving a deficit to be made up with 
acorns, chestnuts and other such materials of one hundred 


and nineteen franks, while the wages of such a family in 
14 


314 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


1840, were five hundred franks, and the cost of wheat enough 
to give them bread, was two hundred and fifty-six franks 
—an excess of wages over the cost of bread of two hundred 
and forty-four franks, to provide them with clothing, shel- 
ter, and other necessaries. 

Thus it appears that under Louis XIV the rural popu- 
lation of France wanted bread half the time ; intermediate 
statistics show that under Louis XV they had bread two 
days out of three ; whilst under Louis Philippe, they had 
bread every day, and a constantly increasing surplus of 
wages for other necessaries. Itis true, indeed, that during 
all this time they had food of some sort, at least, those of 
them that escaped starvation. But their bread was made 
of inferior grains, of chestnuts, acorns, fern, and even worse 
materials ; nor could they obtain enough of these to prevent 
multitudes of them from perishing. One of the ministers 
of Louis XV has left the following record: “At the mo- 
ment when I write, in the month of February, 1739, with 
appearances promising a harvest, if not abundant, at least 
passable, men die around us like flies, and are reduced by 
poverty to eat grass :” and the Duke of Orleans carried a 
loaf of fern-bread into the king’s council to show his maj- 
esty what his subjects lived upon. Few persons now are 
aware upon what wretched food the masses of the people 
lived in “ those good old times.” 

In these tables we have also a comparison between the 
more and the less populous districts of France, with similar 
results. We cannot go over these details here. It must 
suffice to state that they show a constantly increasing pro- 
portion of food produced, and actually distributed to each 
person, as the population increased in density, and a de- 
creasing proportion as it became more sparse. In the words 
of a I’rench economist: “ If we compare together the ten 
most populous and the ten least populous departments, it 
appears from official statistics that, in the former, the yield 
for each person is more in quantity and better in quality to 


POPULATION 315 


the extent of thirty per centum in weight of grain than in 
the latter ; and there is a similar disproportion in all other 
products besides grain.” Thus we see that, in those por- 
tions of France where the population was most dense, there 
was produced about a third more food for each mouth than 
in those where the population was most sparse. 

With respect to the other European countries, we have 
not such full statistical information, but we have a vast 
body of general facts which necessarily involve similar re- 
sults, and some of these are more significant than any yet 
given. Thus the following statements are from Adam 
Smith, the founder of political economy as a science, al- 
though some of them are well known to all readers of gen- . 
eral history: “ Under the feudal governments, the tillers 
of the soil were commonly bondsmen, or tenants at will. 
Both their persons and services were at the disposal of the 
feudal lord, to whom, therefore, all the produce belonged. 
But, in the present state of Europe, the share of the land- 
lord seldom exceeds a third, sometimes not a fourth part. 
Yet the rent of lands, that is, the share of the whole prod- 
uce received by the landlords, in all the improved parts 
of the country, has tripled and quadrupled in absolute 
amount since the ancient times; and this third or fourth 
part received by the landlords is, it seems, three or four 
times greater than the whole formerly was. Rent, though 
in the progress of improvement, it increases in absolute 
amount, diminishes in proportion to the whole produce of 
the land.” Hence it follows that the other two-thirds or 
three-fourths of the whole produce, which do not go for 
rent, remain to be divided between the farmer and the la- 
borer; and this must be six or eight times greater than the 
whole formerly was, whilst the population of no country 
in Europe is three times as great as it was five hundred 
years ago. 

From the statements of Malthus himself, forty years 
after Adam Smith, it would appear that the whole product 


316 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


of the soil, and the proportion of it received by the labor- 
ers, had still further increased during that interval of rapid 
improvement. Tor he states: ‘ According to the returns 
lately made to the board of agriculture, the average pro- 
portion which rent bears to the whole produce seems not 
to exceed one-fifth; whereas, formerly, the proportion 
amounted to one-fourth, one-third, or even two-fifths. 
Still, however, although the landlord has a less share of 
the whole produce, this less share, from the very great 
increase of the whole which has arisen from the progress 
of improvement, yields a larger quantity.” Now, if one- 
fifth, at this time, was greater than two-fifths had been 
formerly, the whole product was more than doubled; and, 
of this whole, four-fifths were received by the laborer and 
farmer: all this in the face of what his theory required. 
How this inconsistency is disposed of we shall see here- 
after—it is not the least wonderful thing connected with 
the subject. 

In like manner, Mr. Senior, one of the ablest of this 
school of economists, in 1836, thus estimates the improve- 
ments which had taken place in England and in the south- 
ern parts of Scotland during the preceding sixty years : 
“ Population doubled, wages of labor more than doubled, 
rent nearly trebled,” 7. e. in absolute amount. 

These are only a few examples of a vast multitude of 
facts which have been adduced in disproof of this theory, 
that increasing populations must necessarily produce a 
constantly decreasing quantity of food for each mouth ; 
and these are crowned by one acknowledged fact, which 
we claim is sufficient itself to refute the theory, and to 
overthrow the whole system of political economy which 
is founded on it. For the most populous of the countries 
of Europe is Belgium, and it is an undisputed fact, that 
the economic condition of the people of that country is 
the best in Europe. There pauperism and distress from 
want of food are almost unknown. Enough and more is 


POPULATION O17 


produced and distributed to all the inhabitants, and large 
quantities are constantly exported. Here, then, we have 
a demonstration that there is no such thing as over-popu- 
lation in Europe; and that, wherever pauperism exists, it 
is due to other causes, namely, to false and wrong social 
arrangements. or even in the great Irish famine, during 
which, perhaps, a million of human beings perished from 
starvation, the exportation of food from the country in 
large quantities was constantly going on. It was not that 
Ireland did not produce food enough for its inhabitants 
that they perished, but because they had nothing to buy it 
with ; and the reason of this was their want of a suffi- 
ciently diversified industry, which had been destroyed by 
free competition with the more advanced industries of 
England. 

Here, now, the question arises, how do the Malthusian 
economists deal with these facts? ‘The answer is, that 
they frankly admit them, and undertake to reconcile them 
to their theory. Some quotations to this effect have al- 
ready been given. In addition, Mr. Senior states: “Since 
the beginning of the eighteenth century [136 years] the 
population of England has about doubled; the produce 
of the land has certainly tripled, probably quadrupled.” 
Also Mr. McCulloch says: ‘Let any one compare the 
state of this, or any other country of Europe, with what 
it was 300 or 100 years ago, and he will be satisfied that 
prodigious advances have been made; that the means of 
subsistence have increased much more rapidly than popu- 
lation, and that the laboring classes are now generally in 
possession of conveniences and luxuries that were formerly 
not enjoyed by the richest lords.” 

These admissions, however, as has been said, are not 
understood by these economists to invalidate the & priort 
theory to which they have been so long and so fully com- 
mitted. They seem to believe that one theory is worth a 
thousand facts, and if the facts cannot be made to square 


318 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


with the theory, so much the worse for the facts. Thus 
Mr. Mill, admitting that the facts of modern times are 
against the law of decreasing food, goes on to say: “ This, 
however, does not prove that the law of which we are 
speaking does not exist, but only that there is some antag- 
onizing principle at work, making head against the law. 
Such an agency there is in habitual antagonism to the law 
of diminishing returns from the land. . . It is no other than 
the progress of civilization.” [sic]. But he comes to the 
conclusion that this law, constantly operating, must in time 
overcome the “antagonizing principle.” So also Mr. Mc- 
Culloch: “From the operation of fixed and permanent 
causes, the increasing sterility of the soil is sure, in the 
long run, to over-match the improvements that occur in 
machinery and cultivation.” 

Now these statements are little less than prodigious. 
For, here, it is flatly conceded that this boasted law does 
not hold good in an advancing civilization; that, for more 
than two centuries of the most rapid increase of population 
ever known, the progress of civilization has been more 
than a match for it. What, then, becomes of it in all past 
time if, in the human race taken as a whole, civilization 
has always been advancing? And what becomes of it for 
the future if civilization should continue to advance? The 
former of these suppositions is now almost or quite univer- 
sally maintained by scientists, and certainly the latter is 
incapable of being disproved. Here, then, this boasted 
“law of diminishing returns from the land” is conceded 
to be no law at all of the actual facts, but something which 
might, could, would or should be a law, if it were not for 
—what? Why, the progress of civilization, forsooth! <A 
great system of political economy vauntingly based upon 
a purely speculative notion, and one which confessedly 
ignores the progress of civilization! Is this anything less 
than prodigious ? 

Moreover, on this starvation-theory, it is impossible to 


POPULATION 219 


understand how civilization should ever have made any 
progress, or ever have come to exist. or if, in the case 
supposed, we allow that eighty of the one hundred settlers 
on the best land of a new country are sufficient to work 
the soil, twenty are left to make and improve tools and 
other appliances, to attend to the education of the youth, 
and the other requirements of civilization. Now, at every 
advance which they make to poorer soils, as their numbers 
increase, they must occupy a greater proportion of land for 
each person in order to produce a sufficiency of food, and 
this necessitates that a constantly increasing proportion of 
their numbers should employ themselves in tillage, leaving 
a constantly decreasing proportion for other kinds of in- 
dustry, whilst the population necessarily becomes more and 
more sparse. At first, then, we have twenty out of the 
one hundred for these other appliances of civilization ; at 
the second stage, there will be but fifteen, at the third ten, 
and soon none at all; but every human being must work 
in the fields to procure a bare subsistence ; which must fail, 
at last, and the feebler begin to die of starvation. Thus, 
at every successive stage of the occupation of new and 
poorer land, and of the relatively decreasing returns from 
it, we have less and less force available for study, invention 
and general improvement, that is, for the progress of civil- 
ization. How, then, is it conceivable that it should ever 
have made any progress? According to this theory, it 
must have been always and everywhere retrograding, with 
ever-increasing destitution and misery. But, inasmuch as 
it is impossible to deny that progress has been made, at 
least during the last two centuries in Europe, these writers 
are compelled to treat it as an accident, which is subject to 
no law, and admits of no rational explanation. And this, 
forsooth, they call social science ! 

Here, then, we recall the words of perhaps the very 
ablest expounder of this system of notions and fallacies: 
“This law [of decreasing returns from the land] is the 


320 WISDOM OF IIOLY SCRIPTURE 


most important position in political economy. Were the 
law different, nearly all the phenomena of the production 
and distribution of wealth would be different.” Well, we 
see here that the law is different—there is no such law—it 
is purely imaginary—the precise contrary is the true law 
of the facts of the case. New settlers begin with the 
lighter soils, because they are the most easily worked. As 
population and force increase, as tools, machinery, and 
other appliances are improved, they advance to soils of 

superior strength and fertility, where the resistance of 

nature is greater, but which they are now able to overcome : 
whence an increase of food for each individual, and an in- 
creased proportion of their numbers released from the work 
of tillage to employ themselves in study, education, inven- 

tion, and all that belongs to a progressive civilization. 

This is the law of the facts, from which it follows, by in- 

evitable necessity, that “nearly all the phenomena of the 

production and distribution of wealth” are “different ” 

from the exposition of them which is made in the works 

of these authors. In fact, this whole system is nothing but 
the blossom and fruit of bad economic arrangements. 

Malthusianism is simply an attempt to justify theoretically 
these false and wrong social arrangements, with all their 

necessary consequences of pauperism and starvation. 

In addition to all that has just been stated, there are 
two points which hitherto have scarcely been alluded to, and 
which are worthy of particular attention. 

The first of these is, that, by “the law of the decreasing fer- 
tility of the soil,” these authors do not simply mean that ever 
poorer and poorer land is occupied as population increases, 
but, also, that the constant and necessary tendency of agricul- 
ture is to exhaust the soil of its natural fertility. They as- 
sume that it has a certain natural amount of productive 
power, and that, upon the whole, this is in a normal process of 
exhaustion. Hither they are ignorant of, or they haye a 
sublime contempt for all inquiries into the sources from 


POPULATION 994 


which the earth derives its fertility, and all the vast results 
of modern agricultural chemistry. Now these inquiries 
have lately poured a flood of light on this whole subject ; 
they have taught us that the earth draws her fertility 
chiefly from the atmosphere, and that the atmospheric sup- 
plies are inexhaustible. For the growths of the earth 
take from the soil not more, on an average, than two-tenths 
of their substance; at least eight-tenths are drawn imme- 
diately from the atmosphere. Hence the crops, as they 
are consumed upon the soil, deposit in it something less 
than eight-tenths of their substance, which was not there 
before. And it makes little difference how they are con- 
sumed, provided it be not by fire, in which case, all that is 
taken from the atmosphere escapes back again into it in a 
free state. Also, when they are consumed in any other 
way, there is still some tendency to such escape—the 
amount deposited in and retained by the earth is something 
less than-eight tenths. It is in this way that the deep and 
rich soils of the prairies and steppes have been formed, 
that is, by the annual decay for thousands of years of the 
natural grasses, and by the deposition in the earth of a large 
proportion of their substance drawn from the air. Hence 
it is the natural tendency of the increase and decay of or- 
ganized beings, both plants and animals, to enrich the 
earth, to render it ever more and more productive. When- 
ever any portion of it is impoverished under agriculture, 
this takes place by the removal and consumption of its 
growths away from it, and by neglect to make the proper 
returns in the form of manures. Otherwise, it is the 
natural tendency of agriculture to enrich the soil year by 
year. And thus, with respect to this element of “the law 
of the decreasing fertility of the soil,” it is found to be no 
law at all of the actual facts, but the reverse is true. 

The second point which has been omitted respects the 
normal relation which subsists between the increase of 


population and that of wealth in civilized countries. For 
14* 


322 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


the Malthusian economists Jay it down as a principle that the 
increase of wealth is measured by the rate of interest 
which money commands. ‘They do, indeed, qualify this 
statement by such general additions as that the government 
must be liberal, and property well secured. But they un- 
hesitatingly apply it to England, France, Germany, the 
United States and Canada. ‘There is not, indeed, as usual, 
the least foundation for this notion, as Adam Smith would 
have taught them, if they had not long ago repudiated the 
authority of their great master, for he expressly states 
that “the rate of interest is naturally low in rich coun- 
tries, and high in poor countries, and it is always 
highest in the countries that are going fastest to ruin.” 
But this is characterized by Mr. McCulloch as a most 
erroneous statement, adding: “ We have no hesitation in 
laying it down asa principle which holds good in every 
case, and from which there is really no exception, that, if 
the governments of any two countries be equally liberal, 
and property in each equally well secured, their compara- 
tive prosperity will depend upon their rate of profit,” 7. e. 
upon the rate of interest on capital. ‘The truth is, how- 
ever, that in all industrial countries where money is loaned 
for investment in productive enterprises, the rate at which 
wealth increases is far greater than that of the interest on 
borrowed capital, otherwise it could not be so employed 
with profit to the borrowers. 

But, now, let us assume this wholly inadequate measure 
for the increase of wealth, and compare it with the increase 
of population. The highest rate of the increase of popu- 
lation known in any country is that in which it doubles 
every twenty-five years, which is less than three per centum 
per annum. JButthree per centum is a low rate of interest 
on capital; yet, at this rate, wealth doubles in less than 
twenty-three years. We see, then, that, at this extremely 
high rate of the increase of population, and at this low 
rate of the increase of wealth, the latter would always 


“ 


POPULATION 393 


keep in advance of the former. With the rate of interest 
at five per centum, wealth, in twenty-five years, would 
amount to nearly three and a half times what it was at the 
commencement of this period, whilst population could not 
be more than doubled. In another twenty-five years popu- 
lation might be four times as great as at first, but wealth 
would have increased between seven and eight times. Now 
the increase of population in such old and well-peopled 
countries as England and France has hardly ever been 
greater than one per centum per annum, whilst the rate of 
interest for money has fluctuated between three and five per 
centum. In such countries, at the rate of two per centum 
the increase of wealth would always keep it far in advance 
of population. But the actual increase of wealth in these 
countries has been, for the last two centuries, from ten to 
twenty per centum: and, in the present state of the world, 
wealth, of whatever kind can always be converted into food. 

Here, then, we have, from conceded data, a demonstra- 
tion that distress from want of food and pauperism in Eng- 
land and other industrial countries have literally nothing 
to do with over-population, but are wholly due to other 
causes, that is, to a totally inadequate distribution of the 
wealth which is actually produced. 

Wecome now, in conclusion, to the moral consequences of 
this utterly groundless theory, which can be fully appreciated 
by those who do not claim to be experts in social science. 

The first of these is, that all attempts to relieve the dis- 
tress of the poor, whether by poor-laws, charitable insti- 
tutions, or charity in general, are contrary to the laws of 
nature, and can never fail to increase pauperism and all 
the evils which they are intended to mitigate. This con- 
sequence is fully admitted by all Malthusians, Mr. Mal- 
thus himself, indeed, being a clergyman of the Church of 
England, could not tell us, in so many words, that we 
must never give a shilling to a starving beggar, but he de- 
velops in detail the evil effects of such relief. He tells us 


324 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


that every increase of food thus supplied to the poor stim- 
ulates the increase of population, and every increase of 
population increases the evil of pauperism. Now the 
influence which such a doctrine must exert to harden the 
hearts of the rich and well-to-do against the poor is ob- 
vious. It brings man’s noblest sympathies into direct con- 
flict with his social duties, which, of course, require him to 
do nothing to increase the enormous evils of pauperism, 
and, consequently, never to bestow charity, which cannot 
fail to increase these evils. ‘This, surely, is a detestable 
doctrine to every man that has a human heart. 

The second of these consequences is, that a very large 
proportion of mankind must be deprived of the blessings 
of marriage and the family. This, also, is admitted and 
avowed by Mr. Malthus and all his followers. For they 
earnestly exhort the poor to’ remain unmarried, as their 
only hope of escape from starvation. Now it is appalling 
to contemplate the practical results which must inevitably 
follow such a general violation of the laws of nature. 
For if there is anything certain, it is that the well-being 
of mankind can never be generally realized out of the 
marriage relation, What would men become but for the 
purifying influence of women in married life, and apart 
from the educating, ennobling intercourse with their chil- 
dren and families! Impurity, more widespread and deso- 
lating than any that has ever been known, except on 
heathen ground, could not fail to be the result. Promis- 
cuous intercourse of the sexes, from which mankind, as it 
would seem, have slowly emerged,* would return, with all 
its horrors. The work of two thousand years of Christian 
civilization would be undone. The world would be en- 
gulfed in perdition. 

A third consequence of this theory is, that it promotes 


* See Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity, also, Ancient Society, by 
L. H. Morgan, LL.D.—the former work published by the Smithsonian 
Institution. 


POPULATION 395 


all those abominable means of frustrating the course of 
nature in the production of human offspring, and goes far 
to justify infanticide itself, which have so extensively pre- 
vailed among the heathen, and which are now returning 
upon us in the midst of our Christian civilization. Thus, 
as we learn from our tables of vital statistics, there is a 
steady decline among the native people of New England 
in the number of children in each family, and in the num- 
ber of births compared with the number of deaths. For- 
merly the general average of children in a family was 
from eight to ten. In one small town there were at one 
time 1043 children in 90 families—an average of between 
11 and 12. In the present generation, there are not more 
than three in a family. In 1864, among the native popu- 
lation of the state of Massachusetts, the deaths exceeded 
the births by 9000; in Boston alone, by 1502. Now, for’ 
any community to be in a prosperous condition in this 
respect, the annual birth-rate must be as high as one to 
thirty of the adult population; but, among the natives of 
that state, it is less than as one to sixty. Hence it would 
appear that this old Puritan stock is disappearing from its 
native seats at an appalling rate. Much of this is due, 
no.doubt, to the large emigration of the young people to 
the new states of the west. But this fact can have no 
bearing upon the decrease of children in each family. 
Upon this point it is significantly asked by one who has 
studied these tables: ‘“ What cause or causes could ever 
bring about such disastrous results?” And he answers: 
“The whole explanation may be summed up briefly under 
two heads: 1. The physical degeneracy of women, and 
2, the settled determination among a large portion of them 
in married life to have no children, or a very limited 
number. No language” he adds, “can adequately por- 
tray the terrible effects which have already resulted from 
these violations of law; and no imagination can fully 
comprehend the disastrous consequences which are yet to 


526 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


follow in the same train.” * Infanticide, also, is now pre- 
vailing among the laboring poor in England to such an 
extent that the statistics of the subject are kept as much 
as possible from the public. “ Wife-killing is one of the 
most common crimes, next to infanticide, which has be- 
come so common as scarcely to be considered a crime.” f 

Now, these horrible practices, with all their results, are 
the natural consequences of this Malthusian theory. For 
it insists that the one thing to be avoided, for the welfare 
of the human race, is the increase of population, because, 
if children are born in natural numbers, the greater por- 
tion of them must perish from starvation. Hence it 
comes to be regarded as a mercy to prevent them from 
coming into the world, and when they do come, to remove 
them out of it as early as possible. If these views should 
come to control legislation, who does not foresee that in- 
fanticide will cease to be a punishable crime, and will be 
regarded among us as a praiseworthy act, as it still is by 
the most degraded of the heathen ? 

The last and most fatal consequence of this theory is, 
that it tends to subvert all faith in the authority of Holy 
Scripture ; it is diametrically opposed to the word of God. 
For God has given to mankind, and that in the form of a 
blessing, the command to “be fruitful and multiply and 
replenish the earth,” whilst this theory teaches us that the 
greatest curses we suffer arise from the natural increase of 
population, and enjoins upon the largest portion of the 
human race to eschew’ marriage, and thus to frustrate their 
natural fruitfulness. God has placed all men in families, 
and these authors would deprive most of them of this 
purifying and blessed influence. God has enjoined charity 
to the poor, and here we are taught that it is an unmiti- 
gated curse which can never fail to increase the evils of 
pauperism and degradation. God has said, “Thou shalt 


* New York Observer, Oct. 4, 1866. + New York Times, Dec. 27, 1867. 


POPULATION 397 


do no murder,” and here we have the murder of infants, 
both before and after birth, legitimated, and rendered prac- 
tically inevitable. 

It was in view of these moral consequences chiefly that 
Carlyle was accustomed to characterise political economy 
as “ the dismal science,” and that Coleridge left upon re- 
cord the following indignant condemnation of this whole 
theory of starvation : 


“Ts it not lamentable—is it not marvellous—that the monstrous 
practical sophism of Malthus should now have gotten complete 
possession of the leading men of the kingdom! Such an essential 
lie in morals—such a practical lie in fact, as it is too! I solemnly 
declare that I do not believe that all the heresies and sects and 
factions which the ignorance and the weakness and the wickedness 
of men have ever given birth to, were, all together, so disgraceful 
to man, as a Christian, a philosopher, a statesman, or a citizen, as 
this abominable tenet. It should be exposed by reasoning in the 
form of ridicule. Asgill or Swift would have done much; but, 
like the popish doctrines, it is so vicious a tenet, so flattering to 
the cruelty, the avarice, and sordid selfishness of most men that I 
hardly know what to think of the result.” 

Coleridge’s Complete Works, Vol. VI. p, 412. 


t 


XVI 
THE MORAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 


Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, suffered you to 
put away your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. 


NOTHING is gained, but much is lost, by unwarranted 
claims in behalf of a good thing. Such claims, it will 
hardly be denied, are not infrequently made even for the 
Holy Scriptures; and, in so far as this is true, its influence 
must have tended to weaken rather than to strengthen their 
authority. In fact, it has proved a great obstacle to the 
faith of multitudes. for, just as the attempt to interpret 
the Scriptural allusions to physical phenomena by the re- 
sults of modern science has been a fruitful source of scep- 
ticism and infidelity, so the groundless assumption that the 
morality which was freely tolerated under the Old Testa- 
ment dispensation must be regarded as on a par with that 
of the New, has loaded them both with a weight which 
neither of them was ever intended to bear. Hence the 
whole subject of the relations between these two portions 
of the sacred canon requires to be thoroughly reworked, 
if God would only send us a man capable of doing it any 
sort of justice. Meanwhile, all that we can undertake 
here is, to throw a little light on it for the relief of Chris- 
tian faith from some of those moral difficulties which are 
deeply felt by almost all students and readers of the Bible. 

But, before entering upon this discussion, in order to 
guard against misunderstanding, we take occasion to de- 
clare the faith which we hold in common with all good 
Christians, that both the Old and the New Testament 


Scriptures are, in their substance and true import, and in 
328 


MORAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 829 


a sense which can be predicated of no other writings, the 
word of God. For, beyond controversy, this has been the 
faith of the church ever since these books have been in her 
possession ; and it is a faith which has become so inrooted 
in the Christian mind, and so inseparably identified with 
the growth and progress of all that is worthy to be called 
civilization, that we have no fears of its ever being eradi- 
cated. It is like the granite which underlies the superin- 
cumbent strata of the globe—it is like the foundations of 
the great mountains which defy the earthquake. It will 
take a great deal more than even modern scepticism has 
ever dreamed of to overthrow it. 

The evidences upon which this faith rests are, when duly 
appreciated, well nigh overwhelming, and such as can never 
lose their force. The claims to Divine inspiration which 
the sacred writers make for themselves with such unwa- 
vering assurance ; the corresponding simplicity and eleva- 
tion of their style; their moral characters and manifest 
aims to do good ; the consciousness of God, in His holiness, 
Justice, truth, goodness, mercy and love, which they every- 
where express; the exalted character of the revelation 
which they represent Him as communicating through them 
to mankind ; the unity of purpose and of doctrine which 
runs through so great a number and variety of authors for 
so many ages; the spirit of prophecy which they constantly 
breathe ; the boldness of their almost innumerable predic- 
tions, which are such as no men in their senses, without the 
consciousness of supernatural illumination, would ever have 
dared to hazard ; the wonderful fulfilment of these prophe- 
cies, especially those concerning the advent and sacrifice of 
Christ ; the miracles of the Lord and His apostles, above 
all, His own resurrection from the dead, as certified by un-- 
impeachable eye-witnesses ; the difficulty of imagining that 
He himself was either an impostor or a fanatic; the expe- 
rience which the church has had for so many ages of the 
power of the Word to enlighten, purify, comfort and save; 


330 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


the fulness with which it satisfies all man’s spiritual wants ; 
the influence for good which the Christian religion, as based 
on revelation, has always exerted in the world—such consid- 
erations as these do constitute a body of evidence for the 
Divine authority of the Scriptures, which, as it never has 
been, so can it never be, without the greatest weight and 
force with unprejudiced and reasonable people. 

Besides all this, which is equally good for both the grand 
divisions of Scripture, we have, for the New Testament, 
all those full and unambiguous assurances of supernatural 
enlightenment which the Lord gave to His apostles, such as 
the following: “When they deliver you up, take no 
thought [ be not anxious] how or what ye shall speak, for it 
is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which 
speaketh in you.... When the Comforter is come, whom 
I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of 
truth... He shall testify of me... He will guide you into all 
truth. .. He will show you things tocome.” For although 
these promises are by no means to be restricted to the 
apostles and writers of the New Testament, yet in reason 
must they be understood as applying, in an eminent man- 
ner, to these chosen teachers and evangelizers of the world. 
And the inspiration thus guaranteed to them must be con- 
ceived of as of a superior order, in certain respects, to that 
of the Old Testament, inasmuch as, previously to the ful- 
filment of these promises on the day of Pentecost, it could 
be said, comparatively, that “the Spirit was not yet 
given.” Accordingly, the authors of the New Testament 
claim to speak and write with all fulness of Divine revy- 
elation; and this claim is abundantly substantiated, not 
only by their miracles, but, also, and perhaps with even 
greater force, by the unparalleled moral and spiritual revo- 
lution which their writings and influence have wrought in 
the world. 

Then, with respect to the inspiration of the Old Testa- 
ment, it is supported by all the authority of the New, so 


i 


MORAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 831 


that both must stand or fall together. For but one mean- 
ing can fairly be drawn from such declarations as the fol- 
lowing: ‘The testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of proph- 
ecy.... Prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, 
but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the 
Holy Ghost.... All Scripture is given by inspiration of 
God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correc- 
tion, for instruction in righteousness.” Besides these and 
many other passages of similar import which might be 
cited, the Lord himself frequently appeals to the Old Tes- 
tament, as of Divine authority, expressly naming David 
as having spoken in the Psalms by the Spirit, and, together 
with Moses and Daniel, as having prophesied concerning 
himself. Hence the above-cited passages from the writings 
of Paul and Peter and John must be understood to express 
the views which the apostles were instructed by their Di- 
vine Master to hold and teach. He, therefore, who gives 
up the inspiration of the Old Testament is logically bound 
to give up also that of the New: he who loses faith in Moses 
and the prophets will hardly be able to maintain his 
faith in Christ. 

With this summary statement of our faith, and of some 
of the grounds on which it rests, we proceed to exhibit our 
method of dealing with the moral difficulties of the Old 
Testament which it has to overcome, and to which we shall 
freely concede whatever force they can reasonably claim. 
The statement of these difficulties will come up in order 
as we undertake to grapple with them; but here, at the 
outset, we would lay down and establish the fundamental 
principle by which, in most cases, we propose to solve 
them. This may be stated as follows: The moral and 
spiritual light of the New Testament is superior to that of . 
the Old, in which latter, the revelations were not complete 
nor final, but partial, in great part provisional, and neces- 
sarily accommodated to the low intellectual, moral and 
spiritual condition of the times, and of the people to whom 


B52 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


they were originally communicated.* We shall find that 
this principle rests, not only upon the reason of the case, 
but also upon the authority of the apostles and of the 
Lord himself. 

There was, then, an unavoidable necessity for such ac- 
commodation of Old Testament revelations to the capaci- 
ties or susceptibilities of the people to whom they were 
originally communicated. For it is certain from all human 
experience, that truths, ideas, and even rules of moral con- 
duct which present no difficulties to people of developed 
and cultivated faculties, cannot be received nor even com- 
prehended by those who, comparatively, are in a low state 
of intellectual culture and moral sensibility, such as, be- 
yond a question, was that of the Israelites in the time of 
Moses. For they were a vast horde of newly emancipated 
slaves, or, at best, a nation just escaped from centuries of 
degrading and corrupting bondage among a people wholly 
given to the grossest idolatries and superstitions. Conse- 
quently, it could not have been otherwise than that they 
should be incapable of receiving those high and pure and 
spiritual revelations of God and Divine things which are 
given to us in the New Testament. These would have 
made no impression upon their unsusceptible faculties— 
upon what Christ called ‘the hardness of their hearts’— 
for which reason, as he explained to the Pharisees, they 
were accommodated by Moses, in one case at least, with an 
inferior rule of moral conduct—a significant case, which 
will come up again in the sequel. A national education 


* “God revealed His truth in the Old Testament to the world according 
to its needs in such language and such modes of thoughtas it could under- 
stand. We need not regard this language and these modes of thought as 
the most perfect from our stand-point; but they were perfect in their 
adaptation to the needs of the generations who were immediately addressed. 
..God’s revelation in the Old Testament is only preparatory, and pales 
before that in the New... Hisrevelation in the Scriptures is like that of the 
sun, whose coming is heralded by the gray tints of the morning, before he 
bursts in full-orbed splendor on mountain and meadow.”—Prof. S. IL. Cur- 
tiss in the Presbyterian Review, July, 1882, p. 581. 


MORAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 333 
for fifteen hundred years in the doctrines of the tity of 
God and of the expiation of guilt by a sin-bearer, and in 
many other particulars, was indispensable to prepare them 
for the reception of the Gospel as it should be revealed, in 
due time, by the Lord and His apostles; the proof of 
which is, that God actually subjected them to such a course 
of training and preparation under the moral and ritual 
laws which He gave them, the ministry of their prophets, 
and the discipline of their wonderful providential history. 
And, thus, in the fulness of time, they were actually pre- 
pared for the superior light of the new dispensation. 

But this principle does not rest upon the necessity of it 
as evinced by human reasoning, but upon the authority of 
Christ and His apostles, by whom we find it clearly 
stated, strenuously defended, and copiously illustrated, in 
explanation of the difference between the old and the new 
dispensations. Thus St. Paul informs us, that “Moses put 
a veil over his face,” that the people whom he led “were 
under a cloud,” that “their minds were blinded,” that 
“a veil was upon their hearts....so that they could 
not steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished.” 
Now such declarations can hardly be understood otherwise 
than that Moses could not tell his people—and if he 
had told them they could not have received what never- 
theless is plainly true—that the revelations delivered by 
him were incomplete, provisional, and destined to be sup- 
plemented, and in part superseded, by more full and 
perfect disclosures in the future. For if they had been 
informed that such was the nature of his communications, 
they could not have received them as of binding moral 
obligation, nor have observed them with that diligence 
which was necessary to their disciplinary effects. As a 
matter of fact, they did receive them as a complete and 
final revelation of the character of God, and of the way of 
salvation, and this was the great error which continued to 
blind their minds long after it should have given place to 


334 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


the enlightenment of the gospel, and which opposed the 
greatest obstacle to the labors of St. Paul for their conyer- 
sion. God seems to have regarded this error as less dele- 
terious than the consequences which would have resulted 
from a full disclosure by Moses of the provisional character 
of his laws and institutions. 

We come now to exhibit in exemplary particulars the 
incompleteness and provisional character of the Old Testa- 
ment revelations, together with the manner and degree in 
_which they are affected, modified, and in some cases even 
superseded, by the superior light of the New. We may 
anticipate that, in this procedure, we shall find the principle 
just laid down still further confirmed, not only by its 
adequateness to the solution of our difficulties, but, also, 
and most of all, by the use which is made of it for this 
purpose by the Lord and His apostles. 

In the first place, then, the moral law itself, as delivered 
by Moses, although it embodied and represented the eternal 
truth of the Divine justice, yet, as a revelation of the 
character of God and of the way of salvation, was incom- 
plete, and required to be supplemented by the gospel. For 
in connection with it, the grace and mercy and love of God 
are not exhibited with that fulness and glory with which 
it sets forth His severity in the punishment of sin: nor was 
the way of escape from its dread penalties—the way of 
salvation by grace—represented to the people under it other- 
wise than in obscure symbols and adumbrations, which re- 
quired the epistles to the Romans, the Galatians and the 
Hebrews subsequently to interpret and explain. The 
character and spirit of the law are expounded by St. Paul 
in such words as the following: “The soul that sinneth 
it shall die. . . . Cursed is every one that continueth not in 
all things which are written in the book of the law to do 
them.” Now it is evident from these and a multitude of 
similar declarations, that in the law there was set forth a 
way of salvation which was, and is, and forever must be, 


ee 


MORAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 835 


wholly impracticable for sinners, because it requires that 
they should not be sinners, and which was never intended 
to save them, but rather to convince them of the utter im- 
possibility of their being saved by their own works or 
agency. Hence, also, it is elsewhere characterized by the 
same apostle as a “ministration of condemnation” and 
even of “death,” whose chief object was to prepare the people 
for that ministration of life and peace which was yet to 
come, and by which, in its Old Testament relations, it was 
to be superseded and done away. Notwithstanding, in all 
this, God was revealed to the people of that dispensation 
in those traits of his character which were specially adapted 
to their spiritual wants in their low moral and spiritual 
condition. 

Now, the spirit of the gospel is very different, and in 
certain respects the reverse of this. For its general tone 
is not that of penalties and curses, although these, as belong- 
ing to the eternal justice of God, are by no means want- 
ing, but, rather, that of promises and blessings. When 
Christ opens His mouth to declare the law in its utmost 
spirituality, streams of blessing pour forth from his lips: 
“Blessed are the poor in spirit... Blessed are they that 
mourn... Blessed are the meek... Blessed are they that 
do hunger and thirst after righteousness... Blessed are 
the merciful... Blessed are the pure in heart. .. Blessed 
are the peacemakers. .. Blessed are they which are perse- 
cuted for righteousness’ sake... Blessed are ye when men 
shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner 
of evil against you falsely for my sake. ...God so loved 
the world that He gave His only banctien Son that 
whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have 
everlasting life...God commendeth His love toward us 
in that while we were yct sinners Christ died for us... 
When the fulness of time was come, God sent forth His 
Son made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem 
them that were under the’ law, that we might receive the 


336 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


adoption of sons: and because ye are sons, God hath sent 
forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts crying, Abba, 
Father.” Here, now, the grace and mercy and love of 
God, which were veiled under the law, are fully disclosed ; 
and here a way of salvation which is practicable for sin- 
ners is laid open. For here God is revealed, not as inflict- 
ing the penalties of His violated law upon us, but as giv- 
ing His Son to die that we might be delivered from them: 
and it is by faith in this most holy sacrifice, and in the 
character and love of God which it reveals, that we are 
delivered from the claims of the law, as a condition of our 
acceptance with Him, and are brought under the immeasu- 
rably deeper and stronger and more tender and effectual 
obligations of grace and love on His part, and of love and 
gratitude on ours. In what respect, also, this way of sal- 
vation is the reverse of the legal way appears from this, 
that in the law God said to the people, Obey me, and I will 
love and bless you; but, if you disobey me, I will curse 
and destroy you : conversely in the gospel He saysto us, You 
have already ‘transgressed my law, and incurred all its 
penalties ; nevertheless I still love you with an inalienable 
love, and have given mine only begotten Son to redeem 
you from the curse of the law by bearing it himself— 
therefore, now, from motives of love and gratitude, you 
are to love me, and keep all my commandments, 

But, for this full unveiling of the character of God, and 
for this way of salvation by grace and faith, the people of: 
the old dispensation were not prepared —therefore, it was 
not given to them. The gospel fulness and freeness of 
God’s love for sinners they could not bear—they would 
have perverted and abused it by reason of ‘the hardness of 
their hearts’—therefore, it was withheld from them. How, 
then, it may be asked, could any of them be saved? The 
answer is, that they were not left in entire ignorance of 
God’s grace and mercy—far from it. - For the penitent 
and believing among them had always a refuge from the 


MORAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 337 


condemnation and penalties of the law in the sacrifices 
which God had ordained to be offered for their sins. These 
were to them, in some sort, what the sacrifice of Christ 
which they typified is to us. For when they confessed 
their sins over the sacrificial victim, symbolically putting 
them upon its head, and the victim was either slain and 
consumed in the fire, or sent away into the wilderness 
where it could never more be found—what could they 
have understood from these Divinely ordained and ex- 
pressive symbols but that their sins were forgiven, and 
should never more be brought against them? ‘These, 
therefore, were God’s means of communicating to the pious 
and godly among them the forgiveness of sins and peace 
of conscience. But it is hardly conceivable that such typ- 
ical adumbrations should have taught them more of gospel 
truth than we ourselves could have gathered from them, 
if we had been left without the explanations which we 
have in the New Testament. In fact, the incompleteness 
of their knowledge is strongly represented in the words of 
the Lord himself to His disciples: “ Blessed are the eyes 
which see the things that ye see, for I tell you that many 
prophets and kings have desired to see those things which 
ye see, and have not seen them, and to hear those things 
which ye hear, and have not heard them.” Hence, also, 
St. Paul could declare in words the significance of which 
is strangely overlooked by those who persist in ascribing 
New Testament light to the people of the old dispensation, 
that “before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut 
up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.” 
For in what conceivable sense could he say, “ We were 
kept under the law,” except that the legal dispensation in 

eeneral was still in foree? And how could they be 
“kept. ...shut up unto the faith which should afterwards 
be revealed,” if salvation by grace and faith had been fully 
made known? To the same effect also is the declaration 
of St. John: “The law was given by Moses, but grace 

15 


338 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


and truth came by Jesus Christ ;” and again, “The dark- 
ness is past, and the true light now shineth.” 

Since, then, the Gospel, as distinguished from the law, 
was thus imperfectly made known to the people of the legal 
dispensation, it is evident that all other communications 
made to them, on whatsoever subject, had to be conformed 
to their imperfect knowledge upon this point. Accordingly, 
in the Old Testament, especially in the writings of Moses, 
the motives of hope and fear are addressed by considerations 
mostly of a temporal character. The patriarchs are never 
spoken of as having gone to heaven after death, but only 
as ‘gathered to, or as sleeping with their fathers’. Hence 
the faith of immortality, although it certainly had some in- 
fluence, must have been, as evidently it was, comparatively, 
a feeble element in the spiritual life of that dispensation. 
In the darkest hours even of the most eminent saints, it 
seems to have failed them altogether. Thus David, pray- 
ing to be healed of some threatening illness, adds: “ For 
in death there is no remembrance of thee; in the state of 
the dead, who shall give thee thanks?” And the same 
darkness seems to have overshadowed the faith of the pious 
king Hezekiah in his song of thanksgiving for his miracu- 
lous restoration to health, where hesays: ‘“ The dead can- 
not praise thee ; death cannot celebrate thee. The living, 
the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day.” Hence, 
also, the apostle Peter breaks forth in thanksgiving as fol- 
lows: “ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, who, according to His abundant mercy, hath be- 
gotten us again toa living hope by the resurrection of Jesus 
Christ from the dead to an inheritance incorruptible, unde- 
filed, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven.” And 
St. Paul declares concerning the superior light of the New 
dispensation on this subject, that it “is now made manifest 
by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath 
abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light 
through the gospel.” Hence, again, in what sense could 


MORAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 339 


it be said that immortality had been brought to light 
through the gospel and the appearing of Christ, if it had 
been fully revealed before? 

Now, from all this it follows by necessary consequence, 
that the revelations given in the Old Testament require, in 
all our interpretations of them, to be modified by those 
which the New Testament supplies. And if we take them 
without such qualification, as declarations of absolute truth, 
which is the view which seems to have commonly prevailed, 
our knowledge of God and Divine things must be, as was 
that of the Old Testament people, extremely one-sided and 
defective. for so great is the effect produced upon the 
incomplete by the complete disclosures of the truth that St. 
Paulcould represent the one as, in some sort, abolished by 
the other, as his words: “ When that which is perfect is 
come, that which is in part shall be done away.” 

In the second place, there isa moral difficulty which arises 
out of the provisional character of the ritual law, but for 
which, it would be unnecessary to say here that this law, 
with its priesthood and sacrifices, its tabernacle and temple 
worship, and all its rites and ordinances, was a temporary 
arrangement, which was destined from the first to be super- 
seded and wholly done away by a subsequent. revelation. 
For its priesthood, though ordained of God, had no inher- 
ent validity, nor otherwise than as typical of the priesthood 
of Christ. Its sacrifices had no efficacy, otherwise than as 
typical of that one ‘offering of the body of Jesus Christ,’ 
which alone could bea valid atonement “to finish the 
transgression, and to make an end of sins... The igh 
tabernacle... was a figure for the time then present, i 
which were offered both gifts and sacrifices that could ne 
make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to 
the conscience—which stood only in meats and drinks 
and carnal ordinances imposed on them until the time 
of reformation... For it is not possible that the blood 
of bulls and of goats should take away sin... For by 


340 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


one offering He hath perfected for ever them that are sanc- 
tified.” 

But, that this was the character of the ritual law was 
not, and could not be revealed to the people who were 
placed under it. or if they had been capable of the 
clear knowledge of what it typified, they would not have 
needed its educating influence, and if they had known that 
it was only a temporary and provisional arrangement, they 
could never have been induced to observe it. How is it 
conceivable that they should have borne its vast expense 
and intolerable burden and “yoke,” as St. Peter calls it, 
if they had known that it had no inherent efficacy, and 
that its sacrifices did not, and could not take away their 
sins? Consequently, Moses gave them no hint that such 
was its character. He himself could hardly have known 
that it was ever to be abolished; for if he had known it, 
he would have been altogether an unsuitable organ and 
instrument for its delivery and enforcement. Accordingly 
he everywhere spoke of it in the strongest terms, as if it 
were to continue forever: ‘The Lord spake unto Aaron, 
Behold, I have given the charge..of all the hallowed 
things of the children of Israel. . unto thee I have given 
them..and to thy sons forever... Their anointing shall 
be an everlasting priesthood throughout their generations. 
... This day of atonement for the children of Israel for all 
their sins, once a year, shall be an everlasting statute unto 
you... Ye shall Keep the passover a feast to the Lord 
throughout your generations by an ordinance forever.” 
It is to such unqualified declarations as these that St. Paul 
evidently refers in the words: “ We use great plainness of 
speech, and not as Moses, which put a veil over his face, 
that the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the 
end of that which is abolished.” And no wonder they 
could not, for so thick and impenetrable was this veil that 
it required the labored epistle to the Hebrews, and, in- 
deed, the whole of the New Testament, to make the light 


MORAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 341 


of the gospel shine through it. Even St. Peter, after all 
the personal instructions of the Lord, and the pentecostal 
illumination, had his mind so clouded by it that. it was 
found necessary still further to enlighten him by a Divine 
vision, that of the sheet let down from heaven. Nor was 
even all this sufficient, for multitudes of Christians during 
the first century, under the stress of these Mosaic repre- 
sentations, still felt themselves obliged in conscience to be 
circumcised and to observe the ritual law. 

Now, from all this it seems plain enough that the people 
_ of the old dispensation must have understood that this law 
was of moral and permanent obligation, and that they re- 
ceived the forgiveness of their sins through its sacrifices in 
a sense in which we, with our New Testament light, know 
that this was impossible. And such views must have car- 
ried with them very much lower and less spiritual concep- 
tions of the character of God, and of Divine things in 
general, but, especially, of the nature of sin, than those 
which are brought to light in the gospel. When it was 
revealed that God could no longer be acceptably worshipped 
with such sacrifices, a flood of new light was poured upon 
His character, upon the spirituality of the worship which 
He required, and upon all questions of practical morality. 
When it was made known that the sacrifices of the ritual 
Jaw could never take away sin, that sin could be atoned for 
by nothing short of the Rerritcs of the only begotten Son 
of God, then and thereby was it declared to be a spiritual 
epannanen and an unfathomable evil, such as had never 
before been conceived of by the vas mind, This it was 
which brought out, as it had never been done before, ‘the 
exceeding sinfulness of sin,’ and the awful nature of the 
punishment which, in the sight of God, it deserved. Hence 
such New Testament expressions as ‘the worm that never 
dies .. the fire that never shall be quenched . . the weeping 
and wailing and gnashing of teeth forever.’ 

The moral difficulty which arises out of all this is ex- 


342 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


pressed in the question, how are all these declarations 
that the law was ordained as “an ordinance forever” to 
be justified, when it was intended to pass away? In 
answer to this, it has been said that no rigorous stress is to 
be laid on the words “ everlasting” and “ forever,” because 
they are as frequently used to express times of indefinite 
length, of which no termination can be foreseen, as they 
are in their literal import. Again, it may be said that 
those spiritual things of which the rites and observances 
of the law were typically significant, 7. e., its very heart and 
substance, apart from which it really had no meaning, and 
to impress which upon the minds of the people it was or- 
dained, shall never pass away, but shall continue literally 
forever. Neither of these answers, however, can be re- 
garded as altogether satisfactory. ‘The true solution of 
the difficulty, beyond a question, lies in that trait of the 
Divine character, too much lost sight of, which is expressed 
in the words of Solomon, the wisest of mankind: “ It is 
the glory of God to conceal a thing.” For the educating 
influence of this law was indispensable to prepare the 
people for the gospel, and this influence could not be 
brought to bear upon them—they would never have en- 
dured the intolerable burden, as we have seen—if they . 
had been given to understand that it was only of tem- 
porary obligation, and was destined to be superseded by a 
future revelation. Now, if it was right to put them under 
this preparatory discipline, of which there can be no ques- 
tion, then was it right to withhold from them whatever 
knowledge would have rendered it incapable of being en- 
forced. The one must be held to justify the other. 

In the third place, God evidently regarded it as indis- 
pensable to the great objects which he designed to accom- 
plish through the instrumentality of the children of Israel, 
that they should be separated as completely as_ possible 
from the rest of mankind, and be to Him a peculiar people. 
This rigorous sequestration under which He placed them, 


MORAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 3438 


as we now understand, was for the purpose of educating 
them, during what St. Paul calls their childhood and mi- 
nority, in preparation for the advent of their promised 
Messiah and the gospel dispensation: in other words, that 
the germs of Divine truth which God had planted in the 
soil of Abraham and his seed might be protected and 
cherished, as in an inclosed nursery, until they should take 
firm root, and grow up into a tree of life which the wild 
and brutal nations—the gotim, or heathen—should not be 
able to uproot nor cut down. 

This separation of Israel from the heathen, being thus 
indispensable to the accomplishment of the Divine purposes 
of grace and salvation, must be accepted with all its ne- 
cessary consequences, which are very numerous and of 
great significance. For, among them, we have the com- 
mand given through Moses to exterminate the inhabitants 
of the land of Canaan, which has always been felt as one 
of the greatest moral difficulties of the Old Testament. 
This command was delivered in such words as the follow- 
ing: “ When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the 
land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out 
many nations before thee...and when the Lord thy God 
shall deliver them before thee, thou shalt smite them and 
utterly consume them—thou shalt make no covenant with 
them, nor show mercy unto them... Thou shalt consume 
all the people...Thou shalt destroy their name from 
under heaven... Thou shalt save nothing alive that 
breatheth... Thine eye shall have no pity upon them.” 
The Israelites themselves were threatened with similar de- 
struction, if they should fail to execute these terrible in- 
junctions: “ But if ye will not drive out the inhabitants 
of the land from before you, then... it shall come to pass, 
that I shall do unto you as I thought to do unto them.” 
Hence their zeal in this work of indiscriminate slaughter, 
of which we have abundant evidence: “ And Israel vowed 
a vow unto the Lord and said: If thou wilt, indeed, de- 


344 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


liver this people into my hand, then I will utterly destroy 
their cities. And the Lord hearkened to the voice of 
Israel, and delivered up the Canaanites, and they utterly 
destroyed them and their cities... Joshua drew not his 
hand back wherewith he stretched out the spear, until he 
had utterly destroyed the inhabitants of Ai... They 
utterly destroyed all that was in the city [of Jericho] both 
man and woman, young and old... We...utterly de- 
stroyed the men and the women and the little ones of every 
city.” 

Now the difficulty here is, not whether it was right on 
the part of God, thus to exterminate root and branch a 
people whose cup of iniquity was full to overflowing. Of 
this there can be no question with any who believe in a 
Divine providence. For these nations, like Sodom and 
Gomorrah, Pompeii and Herculaneum, were actually de- 
stroyed under His providential government and ordering 
of human events. But the difficulty is this: How the 
giving of such commands to His moral creatures—how 
His requiring of them to slay without pity such multi- 
tudes of their fellow-creatures, including of necessity the 
aged and infirm, parents and children, nursing mothers 
and infants at the breast, women with child and in their 
travail sorrows—how all this is to be reconciled with the 
character of God as revealed in Christ, and, especially, 
with the law of love to our enemies, and pity for the feeble 
and suffering. Nor, do we write for those, if any such 
there be, who cannot feel that there is any difficulty here. 

Here, then, we frankly concede that it may not be pos- 
sible, in the present state of our knowledge, to give a solu- 
tion of this difficulty which shall be perfectly satisfactory. 
For we are surrounded with mysteries in the providence 
of God which no created mind can fathom. But it affords 
us some relief when we consider, that this destruction of 
the Canaanites was a solemn judicial act, on the part of 
God, upon a people whose moral corruptions were such 


MORAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 845 


that their continued existence in the world could no longer 
be tolerated ; and that the Israelites were simply His in- 
struments for the execution of this judgment, and were 
abundantly instructed so to regard themselves. Also, it is 
a further relief when we consider what has been already 
suggested, that all this was a necessary consequence of that 
separation of the covenant people from the corrupting in- 
fluence of the heathen which God had ordained as indis- 
pensable to their success in making preparation for the 
coming of Christ, and for the blessings of the gospel. In 
fact, its justification is placed by God himself on this 
eround where he says: “Thou shalt consume all the 
people..... They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they 
make thee to sin against me; for if thou serve their gods, 
it will surely be a snare unto thee.” And so it proved in 
all their subsequent history, in so far as they failed, as 
partially they did, to execute this judgment upon the 
heathen inhabitants of the land. At the same time, we 
must not forget that the highest and purest laws of 
morality had not yet been revealed, nor could be, as is 
proved by the fact that they were not, until the time 
should come when this outward sequestration of the 
covenant people should cease. Hence the commands 
which were given them on this subject, as upon all others, 
had to be accommodated to the degree of moral light 
which they were capable of receiving, and could not go 
beyond it. This whole transaction, therefore, is to be 
regarded as belonging to a low moral condition in the 
people; nor is it conceivable that God should give any 
such commands now to those who have been enlightened 
by the gospel: “ For the darkness is past, and the true 
light now shineth.” 

But, in order to understand more fully how the people 
of those times could give themselves up, without misgiv- 
ing and so heartily as they did, to this indiscriminate 


slaughter, we must apply to the fact of their separation 
15* 


346 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


from the heathen those words of St. Paul which have been 
cited in another connection: ‘ Moses put a veil over his 
face, that the children of Israel could not steadfastly look 
to the end of that which is abolished.” or they remind 
us that, in this case as in the preceding, the lawgiver 
could not tell his people, and if he had told them they 
could not have received it, that this separation was a tem- 
porary arrangement; that the partition-wall between Jew 
and gentile, which God himself had built up, was des- 
tined to be broken down. ‘The gospel truth, that the 
gentiles were to be fellow-heirs with Israel in the great 
salvation, could not be revealed to the people of the old 
dispensation, whilst the necessity for keeping up the sepa- 
ration between them continued. It is true, they had 
glimpses and adumbrations of it, as in the promises to 
Abraham, that in his seed all the nations of the earth 
should be blessed, which were more fully unfolded by the 
later prophets; but these foreshadowings, though clear 
enough to us from the light of the gospel and from the 
history of their fulfilment, were not understood by the 
people of those times, nor, it is safe to say, was it intended 
that they should be; for if they had been, that would 
have effectually broken down this partition-wall before it 
had ceased to be indispensable for the protection of the 
infant church. We see that this must have been the 
result when we remember, that this wall was built up, in 
great part, of distinetions between clean and unclean ani- 
mals for food and sacrifice, together with a vast system of 
ritual observances, including circumcision, all having ref- 
erence to ceremonial purity, by which the people were 
prevented from eating and drinking, intermarrying, and 
otherwise associating with the heathen. Now, if they had 
been given to understand that all these distinctions and 
rites were of a merely positive and temporary character, 
and would all be abolished by a future and higher revela- 
tion; that unclean animals were not such in their own 


MORAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 347 


nature; that swine as such were as pure as lambs, or 
turtle-doves ; is it conceivable that they could have been 
induced to observe this law of distinction, with all its bur- 
densome inconveniences, for so many ages, until they 
should come to abhor swine’s flesh, as they do to this day ? 
And what must have become of their separation from the 
heathen after its principal support had thus given way, 
and they had come to understand that it too was destined 
to be abolished? Hence there was an unavoidable neces- 
sity that they should not be informed of this gospel truth 
concerning the gentiles: and, that they were not, we have 
crowning proof in the words of the great apostle of the 
gentiles himself, who speaks of it as “the mystery which, 
from the beginning of the world, hath been hid in God....— 
the mystery which hath been hid from ages and genera- 
tions, but now is made manifest .... the mystery of Christ, 
which, in other ages, was not made known to the sons of 
men as it is now revealed to His holy apostles and 
prophets, that the gentiles should be fellow-heirs and of 
the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ by 
the gospel.” 

Since, then, it was necessary that this great truth should 
be veiled from the people whilst they were under the law, 
all other revelations, as in the former case, had to be con- 
formed to their ignorance on this point. Hence the evan- 
gelical command to go forth and disciple all nations could 
not be given to the church of the old dispensation. It was no 
part of her duty to “preach the gospel to every creature.” 
To her the gospel itself was very imperfectly revealed. It is 
true that some evangelical light—twilight rays from the 
Sun of righteousness to herald the brightness of His rising 
—did fall, from time to time, upon the minds of the proph- 
ets, and enabled them to anticipate, in a manner, that 
God would gather unto himeelf a people out of the whole 
world. But, as the prophets were understood by St. Paul, 
they did not foresee “that the gentiles should be fellow- * 


348 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


heirs and of the same body” with the covenant people— 
that the distinction between them should be done away. 
And whilst it was necessary that this distinction should 
be kept up, no communications from God on other points, 
with respect to His character, attributes, purposes, or prov- 
idence, could be allowed to withdraw this veil which 
Moses had put over his face. God could not be represented 
to His chosen and peculiar people as the God of other 
nations in the same sense in which He was their God, or, 
if that expression be too strong, as bearing those relations 
to all men which are brought out in the New Testament. 
Other nations must needs be spoken of as, in some sort, 
aliens and outcasts, as the enemies of God and of His 
people. 

Now, in consequence of this necessary veiling of the 
truth upon this point from the people who slaughtered the 
Canaanites, they did not, and could not feel towards other 
nations as we are instructed and required to feel by the 
Lord and His apostles. In their eyes, as a matter of ne- 
cessity, no less than of fact, the uncircumcised heathen 
whom they were commanded to destroy, were an unclean, 
impure and abominable seed, whom it was a pious and 
godly work to exterminate root and branch from the earth. 
And the command which God gave them to do so must be 
understood as accommodated to their low moral condition, 
yet as high as they were capable of receiving in consistency 
with the paramount necessity of keeping them separate 
from the heathen. 

In the fourth place, this same principle must be applied 
to the maledictory psalms, which, together with other 
similar portions of the Old Testament, constitute one of its 
greatest moral difficulties. We subjoin a few examples 
taken almost at random from innumerable passages of 
similar import: “ Let them be confounded and consumed 
together that are adversaries to my soul; let them be 

* covered with reproach and dishonor that seek my hurt 


MORAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 849 


... Pour out thine indignation upon them, and let thy 
wrathful anger take hold upon them... Let their eyes 
be darkened that they see not, and make their loins con- 
tinually to shake... Let their table become a snare before 
them, and their prosperity atrap... Let their habitation 
be desolate, and let none dwell in their tents... . Let them 
be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written 
with the righteous .... Let Satan stand at his right hand 
... Let his prayer become sin... Let his children be 
fatherless and his wife a widow; let his children be con- 
tinually vagabonds and beg... Let there be none to 
favor his fatherless children... Happy shall he be that 
taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.” 
Now, it does not seem strange that good men should 
often be troubled to know how to deal with such fearful 
maledictions. For the author well remembers that, when 
he was a student at Princeton College, the venerable Doctor 
Ashbel Greene—who had previously been president of the 
institution, and whose rigorous orthodoxy was his most dis- 
tinguishing trait—whilst on a commencement visit to the 
College, having read at evening prayers one of these male- 
dictory psalms, suddenly paused, and exclaimed: “ Young 
gentlemen, what shall we do with all this cursing? I will 
tell you: ‘The times of this ignorance God winked at’— 
and that is all that can be said about it.” This, however, 
is by no means all that can be said about it, nor even this, 
without severe qualification ; but such frank recognition of 
the greatness of the difficulty, and this wild dash at the 
solution of it, by such a man, could never be forgotten. 
Concerning these maledictions, it may be properly said, 
as it has been by others, that, in many of them, the original 
Hebrew expresses no sentiments which are not in perfect 
accord with New Testament light. For instead of being 
prayers or wishes, they are often but simple declarations 
or predictions of the judgments which must come upon 
the wicked under the providence and government of a just 


- 390 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


God; and such declarations are as full and emphatic in 
the New Testament as they are in the Old. In many 
cases, also, if we examine them attentively, we shall find 
that they are the expressions of love and pity, rather than 
of hatred. For even where the Psalmist prays that his 
enemies may be confounded and brought to shame, he often 
gives us to understand that the burden of his prayer is, 
that their enmity against God and His people may be frus- 
trated, and not that their persons or souls should be de- 
stroyed. In fact, some of his keenest maledictions he 
follows with prayers for their conversion, as in the follow- 
ing case: ““O my God, make them as stubble before the 
wind: as a fire burneth a wood, and as a flame setteth the 
mountains on fire, so persecute them with thy tempest, 
and make them afraid with thy storm: fill their faces 
with shame—that they may seek thy name, O Lord.” 
Now, if these last words had not been added, we must 
have understood all the rest as an unqualified curse on the 
prophet’s enemies ; but from them we see that it is really 
a prayer for their salvation—that God would bring them 
to the saving knowledge of himself, though by such in- 
flictions as we, with our gospel light, are not allowed to 
invoke upon our own, nor even upon the enemies of God. 
In other cases, however, these explanations do not apply; 
but we find sentiments expressed which require us to bear 
in mind that, in consequence of the necessary veiling of 
truth from the people of that day, they did not, and could 
not know God in his whole character, nor in his relations 
to all His moral creatures, as we know him—sentiments 
which must be interpreted by the principle that their reve- 
lations had to be accommodated to the degree of moral and 
spiritual light which they were capable of receiving. 
Weshall find, also, that still further light will be thrown 
upon the general subject under discussion, and upon this 
particular difficulty, if we take into consideration here the 
mediation of the prophets, through which, in great part, 


MORAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 351 


this accommodation appears to have been effected. For, 
except in the proclamation of the ten commandments 
from the summit of Mount Sinai, God never spoke imme- 
diately to the people themselves. It seems that they could 
not bear to receive communications from Him without 
human mediation ; and, perhaps, there would have been a 
certain impropriety or incongruity in any declaration, or 
commandment, or ordinance from the very mouth of God 
which had not in itself an immutable, eternal obligation, 
but was destined at some future time to be abolished. 
However this may be, when the people heard that myste- 
rious “voice of words,” as “ the voice of a trumpet exceed- 
ing loud,” which “sounded long, and waxed louder and 
louder,” proceeding out of the cloud and flame on the sum- 
mit of Mount Sinai, naturally they were overwhelmed with 
terror, and fled from the awful presence: “For they could 
not endure that which was commanded:” in other words, 
their spiritual state was such that they could not receive 
revelations immediately from God, nor such as were be- 
coming and proper for the mouth of the Eternal to deliver. 
Hence they said to Moses: “Go thou near and hear all 
that the Lord our God shall say, and speak thou with us 
all that the Lord our God shall speak unto thee... and we 
will hear it and do it... but let not God speak with us 
lest we die.” . And this request God himself recognized as 
altogether a reasonable one, for he said to Moses: “TI have 
heard the voice of the words of this people which they 
have spoken unto thee: they have well said that which 
they have spoken.” Accordingly, it was on this occasion 
that He established Moses in the office of a mediator be- 
tween himself and them for the delivery of his oracles, 
saying: “ But as for thee, stand thou here by me, and I 
will speak unto thee all the commandments, the statutes, 
and the judgments which thou shalt teach them, that they 
may do them.” At the same time, He gave them a solemn 
assurance that He would keep them supplied in the future 


Dow WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


with a succession of prophets like unto Moses to act as 
mediators between himself and them; for this is the sig- 
nificance of that famous prediction which included the 
Messiah himself as the crowning term of the series: “I 
will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren 
like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth, and 
he shall speak unto them all that I command him.” Nor 
is there anything more wonderful in their whole history, 
which is filled with signs and wonders, than the actual fulfil- 
ment of this sublime prophecy, through so many centuries, 
from Moses to the advent in the flesh of the Lord of glory. 

Now these prophets, possibly with some exceptions as in 
the case of Balaam, were doubtless the most pure and ex- 
alted and heroic souls of the times in which they lived. 
But all of them, except the great Prophet by whom the 
series was crowned, were men of like passions with other 
men; their sentiments, whilst they delivered the word of 
the Lord unto the people to whom they ministered, could 
not always have been those of perfectly sanctified hearts ; 
and hence their messages could not fail to be more or less 
affected and colored by the human drapery in which they 
had to be clothed. In order to see what the effect of this 
must needs have been, let us endeavor to comprehend the 
circumstances and influences under which the prophets 
spoke. Let us ascend in imagination the stream of time, 
and the development of moral and spiritual light in the 
world, for something like three thousand years, until we 
can take our stand where David stood, and look forth out 
of his eyes upon all things as they must have appeared to 
him. Here, now, we behold the church as consisting of 
one small people, surrounded by great and mighty heathen 
nations, who all stand ready to devour her. The people of 
God and the people of Israel are one and the same. The 
enemies of God and the enemies of the holy nation are 
hardly distinguishable. The wars of Israel with the neigh- 
boring heathen nations are life-and-death struggles of the — 


MORAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 353 


truth and the cate of God with the principalities and 
powers of evil in the world. This deadly conflict between 
truth and error, good and evil, is destined hereafter to take 
on a more inward and spiritual form, but now, at this early 
stage of its development, it is waged in an outward manner, 
and with carnal, weapons: “Tor that is not first which is 
spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterwards that which 
is spiritual.” In these circumstances, in order that the 
people of God may not be discouraged, but may be ani- 
mated and strengthened to fight manfully the good fight of 
faith, it is revealed to them, through the mediation of their 
God-ordained prophets, that their enemies shall never be 
allowed permanently to triumph over them, but that the 
church and the truth shall assuredly come off conquerors 
in the end. To this Divinely communicated assurance the 
prophets give utterance mostly in their own words, in 
their own figures of speech, undeniably in their own 
various forms of expression and style, but chiefly, as is 
natural and inevitable, in reiterated and tremendously em- 
phasized predictions of calamity, disaster, defeat, over- 
throw, and utter destruction to the enemies of God, of His 
truth, and of His people. Such predictions naturally and 
inevitably take the form of maledictions. How otherwise 
can they be sufficiently emphasized to assure the hearts of 
God’s people, who are as sheep and lambs in the midst of 
ravening wolves ? 

Hence these maledictions are to be understood as the 
revelations of God’s judgments upon men and nations 
regarded as the incorrigible enemies of His church, His 
truth, and His salvation. And if, at times, the human 
sentiments of the prophets, or even their resentments of 
national and personal wrongs and outrages, did color their 
forms of expression in delivering to the people God’s as- 
surances of the overthrow of His and their enemies, what 
is this but that they were men of like passions with those 
to whom they ministered? Was it not for this very like- 


304 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


ness that they were chosen of God to be the organs of com- 
munication between Him and their brethren, because He saw 
that He could reach their minds more effectually in this 
way than He could without such mediators? What though, 
whilst they waited for the fulness of evangelical light, and 
in the flame of their unrivaled patriotism, they felt, and 
sometimes gave expression to a joy which was too near 
akin to that of revenge over the assured downfall of their 
proud and cruel oppressors, by whom their native land was 
ravaged, their sacred city and their holy temple were plun- 
dered and burned with fire, and they themselves, with their 
wives and children, were transported to penal settlements 
among the heathen—what does it all amount to but that 
they had “this treasure’? of God’s eternal purpose to 
defend His church and people, and to punish His and their 
incorrigible enemies, “in earthen vessels”? This, surely, 
ought not to weaken our faith in their deliverances as 
being, in their substance and true meaning, the very word 
of the living God. 

In the fifth place, there is still another of these moral dif- 
ficulties which arises from the custom which prevailed 
among the Israelites, and, indeed, among all other nations 
of their times, to include the innocent children and families 
of criminals in the punishments of their parents. Thus, 
by the command of Joshua, “the sons and daughters” of 
Achan were put to death for their father’s sin. Jehu, also, 
in fulfilment of the prophecies of Elijah and Elisha, slew 
all the family and kindred of Ahab, “ until he left him 
none remaining.” His sons, to the number of “seventy 
persons,” were thus beheaded at one time, and their heads 
were carried in baskets, and deposited “ in two heaps” at the 
gate of the city of Jezreel. In like manner, David ina 
time of famine inquired of the Lord for what it had been 
sent, and “the Lord answered, It is for Saul, and for his 
bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites,” that is, in 
violation of the sworn league which Joshua had made with 


. wer 


MORAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 355 


them. Then, by way of atonement for this crime, and 
upon a demand made by the surviving Gibeonites, David 
took the two sons of Saul by Rizpah his concubine, and 
five of his grandsons by “ Michal” his daughter (although 
Michal in the text is perhaps a clerical error for Merab) 
and delivered them over to the Gibeonites, who straightway 
“hanged them up [crucified them] unto the Lord in 
Gibeah of Saul.” And, here, by the way, we have an in- 
cident of’ overwhelming pathos, which has been made the 
subject of a great realistic painting. “ For Rizpah, the 
daughter of Aiah, took sackcloth and spread it for her upon 
the rock from the beginning of harvest until water dropped 
upon them from heaven, and suffered not the birds of the 
air to rest upon them by day, nor the beasts of the field by 
night.” Had not this poor mother some rights in her 
children?’ Would Christ have commanded that these seven 
innocent persons should be thus judicially done to death in 
expiation of a crime which had been committed by their 
father or grandfather, and probably before some of them 
were born ? 

We have no hesitation in answering, that Christ would 
have given no such command; neither does the record 
claim for this execution the sanction of Divine authority. 
For the oracle which ascribed the famine to the guilt of 
Saul and his bloody house does not even suggest any such 
atonement. ‘There is nothing to indicate that either David 
or the Gibeonites acted by Divine direction in this dark 
and bloody transaction. For aught that appears, it was a 
judicial murder: and this view of it is confirmed by the 
fact, that all such punishment had been expressly pro- 
hibited by Moses: ‘The fathers shall not be put to death 
for their children, neither shall the children be put to death 
for their fathers—every man shall be put to death for his 
own sin.” But this law was at least two thousand years 
in advance of public opinion—it could not be executed 
until the gospel had revolutionized the world—it was 


396 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


powerless in the face of the universal custom of the times. 
Precisely the same view is to be taken of the execution of 
Achan’s children. Nor is the case of Jehu different, al- 
though it issomewhat complicated by the prophecies which 
had gone before concerning the destruction of the house of 
Ahab. For these prophecies can in no wise be held to 
justify the agency of those by whom, in the pursuit of their 
own selfish ends, they were fulfilled —least of all, that shock- 
ing spectacle of human heads which was exhibited at the 
gate of Jezreel. That Christ should be crucified was much 
morea matter of prophecy, but that did not justify those who 
crucified Him. Allsuch cases are properly interpreted by 
the words of St. Peter concerning the Lord’s death : “ Him, 
being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowl- 
edge of God, ye have taken and by wicked hands have 
crucified and slain.” Accordingly, Jehu, notwithstanding 
his professed zeal for the Lord, was an idolator in heart 
and practice, and evidently had no other object in‘cutting off 
the house of Ahab than to secure his own possession of the 
throne. At the same time, the judicial purposes of God 
concerning that house, as these had been revealed by His 
prophets, were fulfilled, and that great law of His provi- 
dence which is expressed in the words, “I the Lord thy 
God am a jealous God visiting the iniquities of the fathers 
upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of 
them that hate me,” was carried into effect. For this law, 
which runs through all times and dispensations, simply 
represents a fact of the Divine providence, that children 
are partakers of the evil as well as the good of their 
parents—a fact which is patent to all men, which is a 
necessary consequence of the organic unity of the family, 
and against which all objections are as vain and foolish as 
any that can be urged against any other fact in the consti- 
tution of the moral or physical universe. 

It remains, now, to consider after what manner the Lord 
himself recognizes and applies to such moral difficulties of 


MORAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 357 


the Old Testament as these the principle by which, in most 
of the preceding cases, we have attempted to solve them. 
For, in His sermon on the mount and elsewhere, He re- 
fers to a number of the enactments or allowances of the 
Mosaic law, and either completes or corrects them as He 
judged that they required. It is true, indeed, that His 
criticisms and corrections have commonly been explained 
as applying, not to the law itself, but to misunderstandings 
or perversions of it by its Jewish interpreters; but such 
explanations cannot be maintained without resorting both 
to misinterpretation and to mistranslation. For the words 
éppe0n tots doyatocs, which in our English version are 
translated sometimes “it was,” and sometimes, “it hath 
been—said by them of old time,” ought to have been uni- 
formly rendered, as is now generally acknowledged, “it 
was said to them of old time.” There is no reason what- 
ever for the variation from “it was” to “it hath been:” 
and, with respect to the rendering, “it was said by,” in- 
stead of “to them of old time,” it is true that the Greek in 
itself will bear either sense, but that the former cannot be 
admitted here is proved by the fact, that, in four out of 
the six cases introduced, the statements of what was said 
are made in precise quotations from the law as delivered 
either by God himself in the decalogue, or by Moses in 
His name, and in the other two cases perfectly fair and un- 
impeachable abstracts or summaries are given. Hence this 
rendering, “it was said by,”—requires that God and Moses, 
whose precise words are quoted, should be meant by 
“them of old time.” Now, if Moses could, surely God 
could not, be fitly or reverently designated by any such ex- 
pression. Moreover, if the Lord had intended to correct 
misinterpretations or perversions of the law, no reason can 
be assigned for his exact quotations of its words. We shall 
see hereafter how totally inapplicable this view is to one case, 
at least, where He expressly prohibits what He himself 
admits and declares that Moses had allowed. And, with 


358 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


respect to the words which, though correctly translated, 
have been misinterpreted in support of this view, that the 
Lord did not mean to correct the law itself, they are the 
following: ‘Think not that I am come to destroy the law 
or the prophets ; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil: for 
verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot 
or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be 
fulfilled.’ But this declaration is in no wise inconsistent with 
what is here maintained. For it was evidently intended to 
guard against that entire misunderstanding of His relation 
to the law which otherwise would have been natural, and 
perhaps unavoidable, from his subsequent treatment of its 
claims ; but it cannot reasonably be understood as affirming 
the final completeness or absolute perfection of the law in 
the forms in which it had been delivered “to them of old 
time,” nor absolutely that it should never pass away. For 
He himself here states a certain condition upon which very 
much might, as it subsequently did, pass from the law, 
nainely, that it should be fulfilled. Now this fulfilment to 
which He refers is His work, not ours, and, consequently, 
what He says here has no bearing upon the question, 
whether the law in its requirements of us was such that it 
could never have anything added to or taken from it. In 
consequence of His fulfilment of the ritual law, it ceased to 
be of any moral obligation, and did utterly pass away ; 
and in consequence of His fulfilment of the moral law, it 
has ceased to be a condition of the believer’s acceptance with 
God, and its penal claims no longer stand against him. 
But if these words of the Lord, “One jot or one tittle shall 
in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled,” are not 
inconsistent with these two great modifications of it, still 
less are they inconsistent with His giving to it, regarded 
as the rule of life, its final and perfect form, wherever it 
had been provisionally enacted, or incompletely made 
known, in accommodation ‘to them of old time.” 

We proceed now to exhibit in order these six cases 


a a ad 


MORAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 859 


wherein our Divine Teacher completes, by correcting or 
extending the provisions of the moral law as delivered to 
the people of the old dispensation. In two of these, He 
quotes from the decalogue itself, and develops its spiritual 
import, both with respect to the extent of its obligation, 
and to the punishment of its violation. 

In the first case, He quotes the precise words of the 
sixth commandment, and subjoins a reference to the judg- 
ment of God incurred by its transgressors—-in which ref- 
erence, he unquestionably gives a true summary and in- 
terpretation of the general import of this enactment— 
then He adds what He judged necessary to complete it: 
“Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, 
Thou shalt not kill, and, whosoever shall kill shall be in 
danger of the judgment. But I say unto you, that who- 
soever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be 
in danger of the judgment ; and whosoever shall say unto 
his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council; and 
whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell- 
fire.” Is it not self-evident that He is treating here of 
the commandment itself, as not expressing the whole 
truth? Tor the condemnation of an outward act does not 
necessarily express, though it may imply condemnation 
of the feeling or state of mind from which it springs ; 
and certainly the prohibition of murder does not logically 
contain the prohibition of opprobrious or injurious words. 
Consequently, He proceeds here to complete this com- 
mandment by unfolding the spirituality of its obligation 
as comprehending the feeling of anger without just cause, 
by extending it to injurious and reviling words, and by 
adding to it what it does not even intimate, and what can- 
not fairly be inferred from anything in the whole law of 
Moses, namely, that the punishment of its violation in- 
cludes the future torments of hell: in all which, it seems 
plain enough that He is dealing with the commandment it- 
self, rather than with any perverse misunderstanding of it. 


360 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


In the second case, He quotes the seventh commandment, 
in His treatment of which He evidently refers to the im- 
pure relations between the sexes which were tolerated under 
the old dispensation because the people of those times were 
incapable of anything better. or, in the laws of Moses, 
no restriction appears to have been laid upon polygamy or 
concubinage—they seem to have been regarded without 
censure or reproof. Except that kings were forbidden ‘to 
multiply wives and horses to themselves,’ we find nothing 
in those laws to restrain any man from having as many 
wives and concubines as he chose. Moses legislates upon, 
without prohibiting them, both these forms of impurity, 
which implies that he tolerated them. In fact, they appeared 
in the very source of Hebrew life, and were authorized by 
the noblest patriarchal examples. For Abraham himself, 
although he restricted himself to one wife at a time,cer- 
tainly had one concubine, Hagar, and from the following 
notice he seems to have had more: ‘ Unto the sons of the 
concubines which Abraham had Abraham gave gifts, and 
sent them away from his son Isaac while he yet lived.” 
Jacob, also, the father of the twelve patriarchs, by whose 
God-given name of Israel his descendants always delighted 
to distinguish themselves, was both a polygamist and a 
concubinist, and, if he had not been, there would have 
sprung from him but six tribes at most, instead of the 
sacred number, twelve. Now, these impure sexual re- 
lations in the very fountain of their ethnic life, and these 
high examples, could not fail to influence powerfully the 
subsequent morality of the people. What restrictions upon 
these national customs they could have been induced to 
accept may readily be inferred. And it is in the light of 
such facts as these that we are able to comprehend the 
populous harem of King David, and the one thousand wiyes 
and concubines of Solomon. 

Now, with all this in view, together with much more, 
some of which will require to be exhibited in the next case, 


MORAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 861 


our Lord here declares that,in the superior light which 
He brought into the world, such impure relations between 
the sexes could be no longer tolerated. He says nothing, 
indeed, about polygamy or concubinage, but He strikes 
directly at the impurity of heart from which they spring, 
and which the seventh commandment, in the form in which 
it had been originally delivered, did not explicitly con- 
demn: “ Ye have heard that it was said to them of old 
time, Thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say unto 
you, that whosoever looketh upon a woman to lust after 
her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. 
And if thy right eye offend thee[in this way] pluck it 
out and cast it from thee, for it is profitable for thee that 
one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole 
body should be cast into hell.” Here He places the stigma 
of Divine reprobation upon the bosom sin from which all 
impure acts proceed; also, upon its primary form of ex- 
pression by the eye ; and, as in the preceding case, He adds 
to the commandment what it did not, in its original form, 
even suggest, namely, that its violation incurs the punish- 
ment of hell. 

Such is our Lord’s treatment of the decalogue, in order 
that it might be made fully to express what the perfect law 
of moral duty requires, together with the spiritual penalty 
of its violation. Its previous insufficiency, which he so 
strongly emphasizes, is to be explained solely by the fact, 
to which He here evidently refers, and which He subse- 
quently brings forward, that the people of the former dis- 
pensation were, by reason of the hardness of their hearts, 
incapable of receiving it in any more searching or spiritual 
form. And we shall immediately see that He treats with 
still greater freedom and boldness other enactments and 
allowances of the Mosaic laws, which had been so far ac- 
commodated to the moral susceptibilities and capacities of 
the people that they now required to be abrogated alto- 


gether. 
16 


362 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


Accordingly, in the third, and perhaps the most signifi- 
cant of all these cases, our Lord, by his own Divine au- 
thority, abrogates that freedom of divorce which had been 
previously allowed. For we find nothing in Moses’ laws 
to restrain any man from putting away his wife or wives 
at his own pleasure, nor from marrying other women, nor 
women, so divorced, from marrying other men. On the 
contrary, all these customs were regulated by legal enact- 
ments, and thus expressly allowed, as in the following 
words: “ When a man hath taken a wife and married her, 
and it come to pass that she find no favor in his eyes, be- 
cause he hath found some uncleanness in her [of which he 
alone was the judge] then, let him write her a bill of di- 
vorcement, and give it into her hand, and send her out of 
his house; and, when she is departed, she may go and be 
another man’s wife.” And, from the manner in which 
such divorces are referred to by the prophets, as, also, from 
our knowledge of human nature, we may be sure that they 
became very common, and an bea of enormous magnitude. 

One reason for their toleration, however, may have been 
that it enabled the prophets, from time to time, to purify 
the people, after they had corrupted themselves by inter- 
marriage with heathen women. This, at least, was the 
most important use that ever.seems to have been made of 
it. For, notwithstanding the stringent prohibitions of such 
marriages in the, law, the charms of “the daughters of 
men,” as before the flood, often proved irresistible to the 
frail “sons of God.” These prohibitions were a feeble 
obstacle to the tide of previous customs both with the peo- 
ple and their princes. or the twelve sons of Jacob, the 
heads of the tribes of Israel, must have married alien 
wives. Joseph, we know, was the husband of an Egyptian 
woman, who was the mother of Ephraim and Manasseh, 
the former of whom was the progenitor of a tribe which 
became so numerous and powerful that, in the subsequent 
history, it was the great rival of the tribe of Judah. Judah 


ra 


MORAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 363 


himself, as we are informed, had at least one Canaan- 
itish wife, and his son Phares, from whom descended the 
royal and sacred line of David, was the offspring of his 
involuntary connection with his own daughter-in-law, who 
also was probably a Canaanitess. Further on in the his- 
tory, we find Salinon, a prince of the house of Judah, mar- 
ried to Rahab, a Canaanitish harlot, who was the mother 
of Boaz, the husband of Ruth, a Moabitess. All these, 
from Judah down, were the ancestors of David, and of our 
Lord himself. David, also, had alien women among his 
numerous wives, one of whom was the mother of Absalom ; 
and Solomon had many such, among whom an Ammonitess 
was the mother of Rehoboam, his successor on the throne ; 
whilst his marriage with the daughter of Pharaoh was, it 
seems, the occasion on which he composed “the Song of 
Songs.” No wonder, then, that the captives who returned 
from Babylon, influenced by such high examples, imme- 
diately began to corrupt themselves by intermarrying with, 
and “doing according to the abominations of the Canaan- 
ites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammon- 
ites, the Moabites, the Egyptians and the Amorites.” And 
it was on this occasion that the prophet Ezra took advan- 
tage of the freedom of divorce which Moses allowed to 
purify ‘the holy seed’ by compelling upwards of one 
hundred heads of families to put away their heathen wives. 

But the all-controlling reason why this freedom was 
tolerated must have been that which the Lord himself as- 
signs in the following passage, where he abrogates it in the 
most unequivocal manner: “It was said, Whosoever will 
put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorce- 
ment. But I say unto you, whosoever shall put away his 
wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to 
commit adultery; and whosoever shall marry her that is 
[so] divorced, committeth adultery.”” And when the Phar- 
isees objected to this doctrine on the ground that Moses 
had authorized them thus to repudiate their wives, He ad- 


364, WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


mits the fact, as undeniable, and gives, as the reason why 
he did so, the hardness of their hearts, which rendered 
them incapable of receiving any better rules of moral duty : 
“The Pharisees also came unto Him tempting Him, and 
saying unto Him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his 
wife for every cause? And He answered and said unto 
them, Have ye not read that He which made them at the 
beginning made them male and female, and said, For this 
cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave 
to his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore, 
they are no more twain, but one flesh. What, therefore, 
God hath joined together let not man put asunder. They 
say unto Him, Why did Moses, then, command to give a 
writing of divorcement, and to put her away? He saith 
unto them, Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, 
suffered you to put away your wives, but from the begin- 
ning it was not so. And I say unto you, whosoever shall 
put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall 
marry another, committeth adultery; and whoso marrieth 
her which is [so] put away doth commit adultery.” Thus 
He reiterates His own prohibition of what Moses had al- 
lowed, on the ground that it was an accommodation to 
their low moral state, and was not in accordance with the 
eternal laws of morality—“‘from the beginning it was not 
so”—and re-affirms on His own authority that, if they 
should continue to practice it, they would incur the guilt 
of adultery. 

Here, now, we have the typical case which clearly inter- 
prets all the others, and demonstrates that they were not 
directed against misunderstandings or perversions of the 
Jaw, but were intended to qualify or complete it where it was 
deficient, or even to abrogate those things in it which had 
been most accommodated to the low moral and _ spiritual 
susceptibilities of the people, and to replace them with final 
revelations of the perfect moral law. Thus we have estab- 
lished, on the authority of the Lord himself, the principle 


ty 


MORAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 865 


which we have applied to the solution of these moral dif- 
ficulties of the Old Testament. And what, we may well 
ask, can we possibly gain—do we not stultify ourselves— 
by denying that He sets His own teachings in opposition 
to things which Moses allowed, when He himself une- 
quivocally admits the fact, and fairly shoulders the whole 
difficulty ? 

Hence, in the fourth case, He must, in reason, be under- 
stood in a similar manner. For here he refers to a rule of 
morality many times reiterated by Moses in such words as 
the following: Ye shall not swear by my name falsely. . . . 
If a man swear. ..an oath to bind his soul with a bond, he 
shall not break his word, but shall do according to all that - 
proceedeth out of his mouth.” And, precisely as in the 
last case, He absolutely prohibits what Moses allowed: 
“Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time: Thou 
shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the 
Lord thine oaths. But I say unto you, swear not at all; 
neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne; nor by the earth, 
for it is His footstool; neither by Jerusalem, for it is the 
city of the great King; neither shalt thou swear by thy 
head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. 
But let your communication be, Yea, yea, Nay, nay, for 
whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.” Our pre- 
sent purpose does not require us to touch the vexed ques- 
tion, whether this is to be understood of judicial, as well 
as of other oaths, but simply to show that the Lord here 
prohibits what Moses, by way of accommodation, had al- 
lowed and sanctioned. 

In the fifth case, He refers to the lex talionis, as given by 
Moses, quoting his very words, which law, whether so in- 
tended or not, the people were left free to understand as 
equally applicable to private and public wrongs. For, in 
the whole law, there is no intimation that it was to be lim- 
ited to the administration of public justice ; and that it was 
not so understood at the time is evident from the Mosaic 


366 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


provisions concerning “the avenger of blood” and “the 
cities of refuge.” Now, to all this the Lord opposes what 
previously was altogether unknown, namely, His own doe- 
trine of non-resistance to evil: “Ye have heard that it 
was said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But 
I say unto you, that ye resist not evil ; but whosoever shall 
smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also; 
and if a man shall sue thee at the law, and take away thy 
coat, let him have thy cloak also; and whosoever shall com- 
pel thee to goa mile, go with him twain.” Again, we 
need not inquire, whether all this is to be interpreted liter- 
ally, or by the common figure of hyperbole. 

In the sixth and last case, He lays down the New Tes- 
tament law of love to our enemies, with a precisely similar 
reference to what Moses had allowed: “ Ye have heard 
that it was said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate 
thine enemy.” Now, it seems evident that the preceding 
cases, especially the third, in which undeniably He revokes 
what had been previously sanctioned, ought, if other evi- 
dence were wanting, to govern the interpretation cf this 
one. For although it is not said in the law, Thou shalt 
hate thine enemy, yet surely it cannot be regarded as a 
strained or unfair summary of such passages as the follow- 
ing: “Remember what Amalek did unto thee in the way 
when ye came forth out of Egypt—how he met thee by 
the way, and smote the hindmost of thee—all the feeble 
ones behind thee, when thou wast faint and weary. © 
Therefore, it shall be, when the Lord thy God hath given 
thee rest from all thine enemies round about in the land 
which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to 
possess it, that thou shalt blot out the remembrance of 
Amalek from under heaven—thou shalt not forget it... . 
An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter into the con- 
gregation of the Lord, even to the tenth generation... 
forever, because they met you not with bread and water 
by the way when ye came forth out of Egypt, and be- 


eal 


~ MORAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 367 


cause they hired against thee Balaam the son of Beor... 
to curse thee.... Thou shait not seek their peace nor 
their good all thy days forever.” All this, no doubt, was 
indispensable to secure that rigorous sequestration of the 
covenant people from the influence of the surrounding 
heathen, without which, as we have seen, the great object 
for which they had been called out of the world could 
not be accomplished. But is it in accordance with New 
Testament light, that they should be thus enjoined to 
cherish, from generation to generation and forever, the 
memory of the injuries which they had suffered from these 
neighboring and kindred tribes? Is not the appeal here 
made to this motive, in order to secure the result, as pal- 
pable an accommodation to their low moral and spiritual 
condition, which rendered them insusceptible to higher 
and purer motives, as was that freedom of divorce which 
Moses allowed, and which the Lord abrogated? Hence 
He proceeded to deal with it precisely as he had dealt with 
that: “ Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt love 
thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy, But I say unto you, 
love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to 
them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully 
use you, and persecute you: that ye may be the children 
of your Father which is in heaven, for He maketh His 
sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth His 
rain on the just and on the unjust.” 

In conclusion, the practical consequences of the views 
which have now been presented are very numerous and 
far-reaching, but they cannot be developed here. We can 
only add, that no objection to the method we have em- 
ployed in dealing with the moral difficulties of the Old 
Testament can have any force or validity which does not 
offer a more satisfactory solution of them, and which does 
not invalidate the evidence here given that this was the 
method adopted and applied by the Lord himself. Fail- 
ing this, we may safely rest in the conviction, that the 


368 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


vo 


moral light of the Old Testament is vastly inferior to 
that of the New, and that whatever there may be in the 
former which is not in perfect harmony with the latter, is 
to be explained by the unripeness of times, and, as a rule 
of moral duty for us, is to be corrected, as Christ sets us 
the example of correcting it, by the superior light of His 
own spoken word and gospel. 


XVII 
THE PARAMOUNT CHARACTER OF THE LORD’S TEACHING 


Never man spake like this Man. ... That in all things He might 
have the pre-eminence, 


In the preceding study, we have considered the con- 
trolling and modifying influence of our Lord’s teaching 
upon the revelations of the Old Testament, and we must 
now inquire, whether it bears a similar relation to the sub- 
sequent writings of His apostles, especially to those of 
St. Paul, which have so largely contributed to mould the- 
ology and Christian faith. The necessity of this inquiry 
arises from the fact, which is evident even to a cursory 
reader of the New Testament, that there are remarkable 
differences between our Lord Jesus Christ and His holy 
apostle Paul, with respect to the verbal and intellectual 
forms in which they set forth the same truths. These dif- 
ferences, of course, are regarded by all Christians, not as in- 
volving anything of the nature of inconsistency, but as 
pertaining merely to forms of presentation. Yet the 
more they are contemplated, the more striking they become. 
We propose, therefore, to examine them with some atten- 
tion, in order to elicit their meaning, if any they have 
which may help us to a better understanding of revealed 
truth. 

The general characteristics of our Lord’s teaching to 
which we refer are such as the following: He reveals the 
truths of the spiritual world on His own authority, as in- 
tuitively perceived by himself, with the least possible resort 


to logical processes, in synthetic or concrete forms, and in 
16* 369 


370 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


highly figurative language. He seldom refers to the pre- 
ceding Scriptures, and then, as it would seem, quite as 
much for the purpose of confirming their truth as that of 
His own declarations. He does not hesitate,as we have 
seen, to supersede, upon occasion, their deliverances by new 
revelations, as in the typical case of the Mosaic laws of 
marriage and divorce: “ For He taught them as one hay- 
ing authority, and not as the Scribes.” He seems carefully 
to avoid abstractions and definitions. The figures and 
symbols of great variety and boldness which abound in 
His discourses He seldom interprets, and then, evidently, 
without aiming at exactness or precision. He never ex- 
plains how far His similitudes are to be carried. The 
profound and sublime truths which He throws out with 
almost every breath He leaves without precise boundaries 
and necessary qualifications to work, as vital principles, 
their own effects and consequences in human life; of which 
we have examples in the parables of the unjust steward, 
the unjust judge, the friend of whom one came to borrow 
bread at midnight, and in a multitude of such declarations 
as the following: ‘ Whosoever shall smite thee on thy 
right cheek, turn to him the other also.” Evidently He 
feels no solicitude or concern for the systematic harmony 
of the truths which He delivers, although these are often 
so remote and different from each other that they have the 
appearance of being inconsistent, or contradictory, as in 
the following examples: “I and my Father are one... 
My Father is greater than I...There is none good but 
one, that is God... Which of you convinceth me of sin. 
... Ye will not come to me that ye might have life.... 
No man can come to me except the Father which hath sent 
me draw him... All power is given unto me in heaven and 
in earth... To sit on my right hand and on my left is not 
mine to give... No man hath ascended up to heaven but 
He that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man 
which is in heaven.” Hence these and similar antinomies 


THE LORD'S TEACHING PARAMOUNT 371 


in His teaching have proved the fruitful germs of vast 
and hostile systems of theology. So rigorously does He 
abstain from all attempts at systematization that even such 
words as regeneration, justification and _ sanctification, 
together with their derivative forms, He hardly ever 
uses, and never, as it would seem, to express those theolo- 
gical and systematic abstractions which they commonly 
represent in the writings of St. Paul. In His mouth they 
have a free and popular sense, as in the following cases : 
“By thy words thou shalt be justified...I sanctify my- 
self... Ye which have followed me in the regeneration.” 
Moreover, in the place of justification by faith, as this form 
of doctrine is exhibited and emphasized by St. Paul, He 
everywhere insists upon the forgiveness of sins, and the 
more comprehensive form of salvation by faith: “ For- 
give, and ye shall be forgiven. ... He that believeth on me 
hath everlasting life...If ye believe not that I am He, 
ye shall die in your sins :” in all which, how true it is that 
“never man spake like this Man”! In fine, He rather 
assumes by implication than enunciates the doctrines of 
the Divine decrees, foreordination and election, which, in 
the writings of St. Paul, arecarefully stated, copiously 
developed, variously illustrated and applied. 

In all these and many other particulars of form, the 
teaching of the Master is strikingly different from that of 
His great apostle. For St. Paul constantly appeals to the 
preceding Scriptures, and to Christ himself, as the ultimate 
authority, not only for his readers, but also for his own 
mind. He delivers the truth in abstract rather than in 
concrete forms. Figurative or symbolical language he 
seems to avoid as much as possible. He interprets and 
applies the types and allegories of the Old Testament, but 
introduces none of his own, nor has he a single parable. 
He is eminently argumentative, logical, systematic. He 
delights in abstruse processes of reasoning, and canvasses 
with great earnestness and rigor the objections which arise 


S72 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


against his doctrines. In these arguments he marshalls his 
ideas in dense masses—their movements are like the 
thunderous tramp of armed squadrons—he storms the 
enemies’ camp. Also, he strongly insists upon the systematic 
harmony of the whole scheme of revealed truth, not only 
with itself, but also with the providential history of the 
people of God from Abraham down to his own time; and 
he takes special pains to reconcile the legal dispensation 
under Moses with salvation by grace and faith, as revealed 
in germ to Abraham, wrought out efficaciously by thé 
Lord Jesus, and doctrinally elaborated by himself. Above 
all, he lays the greatest stress upon the Divine decrees, 
predestination, election and justification by faith alone ; 
which last he evidently regards as the most important 
form of truth for the special object which he aims to ac- 
complish, since it is the theme of his most labored epistles, 
and the substratum of all his writings. 

Such, in general, without taking into account the partic- 
ular qualifications which these statements may require, are 
the most obvious differences in form between the teaching 
of Christ and that of St. Paul, as represented in the re- 
ported discourses of the one, and in the extant writings of 
the other. How are we to understand them? What help 
do they afford us for a better appreciation of revealed 
truth? These are the questions which we have now to 
consider. 

It is hardly necessary to observe, however, that the ab- 
solute authority claimed by our Lord Jesus Christ is 
sufficiently accounted for by the orthodox conception of His 
divinity ; whilst St. Paul, as His disciple and apostle, 
couldnot do otherwise than recognize the authority of his 
Master and of the Scriptures whose inspiration was so fully 
indorsed by Him. Perhaps, also, some of these differenccs 
may be explained by the peculiarities of St. Paul’s mental 
constitution and education, which, as in the case of the other 
sacred writers, his plenary inspiration certainly did not 


THE LORD’S TEACHING PARAMOUNT 373 


obliterate. But, with respect to most of those which have . 
been indicated, they cannot be disposed of in this summary 

way, but must be regarded as having a deeper significance. 

Accordingly, some sceptical authors maintain that they are 

not mere differences of form, but of essential doctrine, and 

that, in the history of the church, the doctrinal system of 
the disciple has prevailed over, and thrown into the shade, 

the unsystematic teaching of the Master. Hence what has 

been called Christianity they call Paulinism. We may find 
hereafter that this chaff is not without its grain of truth. 

Others, who cannot be classed with sceptics, would account 
for these differences by regarding Christ as the originator 
of Christianity, and St. Paul as its first great philosophical 

or doctrinal expounder. Among Christians, however, the 

most common explanation seems to be, that there is a cer- 

tain progress of revelation in the New Testament, such 

that what the Lord delivers in germ or principle, St. Paul 

develops, formulates and systematizes. In confirmation of 
this view, which differs but little from the preceding, the 

writings of the apostle are analyzed, and the following de- 

clarations of the Lord are cited: “I have many things to 

say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.: howbeit, when 

He the Spirit of truth is come, He will guide you into all 

truth... He will show you things to come.” It is 

claimed that these and similar declarations contain a prom- 
ise of a more full and complete revelation than was given 

by the Lord himself, which, accordingly, we are supposed 

to have in the subsequent writings of His apostles. 

Now, we are constrained to reject all these explanations ; 
the first, as sceptical and false, having but a single sparkle 
of truth to render it plausible ; the second, as savoring of 
rationalism, and, together with the third, as inadequate to 
account for the facts, and as otherwise objectionable. For 
they supply us with no good reason why those particular 
doctrines, rather than others, to which Christ only alludes 
should have been so treated by Him, nor why the same 


O74 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


doctrines should have been so strenuously insisted on by St. 
Paul. Justification by faith can hardly be concéived of as 
one of those things which the disciples could not receive 
from the lips of their Divine Master, since all the diffi- 
culties which it involves are quite as palpable in the doc- 
trine of salvation by faith, upon which He everywhere 
insists. Nor is there anything hard to be received in St. 
Paul’s treatment of the decrees, foreordination and election 
which is not contained in the teaching of Christ, wher- 
ever He assumes or alludes to these mysterious doctrines. 
Still less satisfactory, if possible, are these views as an ex- 
planation of the Lord’s unsystematic and figurative pres- 
entation of the truth, and of those startling antinomies 
with which it abounds; for in these we find much greater 
difficulties than any which St. Paul has left us to deal with 
in his systematic and harmonized scheme of doctrine. But 
the strongest objection to such progress of revelation as is 
here supposed is, that it represents the highest, in fact, the 
only absolute and final forms of the truth, as delivered to 
us, not in the words of the Master himself, but in those of 
His disciples. Now this, which might be accepted in the 
case of a merely human teacher—Socrates, Plato, Aristotle 
or Kant, for example—is totally inadmissible in that of 
the incarnate Word and Wisdom of God, to whom, in 
teaching, as in everything else, pre-eminence ought to be 
ascribed. Moreover, this dependence upon the disciples 
for the last word of revelation does not seem to be alto- 
gether consistent with that personal trust in Christ him- 
self for salvation from error, as well as from all the other 
evils of sin, by which we become partakers of His fulness, 
and in which none of His disciples, howsoever plenarily 
inspired, can stand in His place. Nor do His words, 
which are cited above in proof of such progress require to be 
so interpreted. Jor evidently the principal truth which they 
were intended to declare is, that the Holy Spirit should 
open the minds of the disciples to a more full understand- 


THE LORD’S TEACHING PARAMOUNT 375 


ing and realization of the revelations which the Lord had 
delivered, and which they had but very imperfectly compre- 
hended. ‘The declaration, “ He shall... bring all things 
to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you,” 
may fairly be taken as explanatory of whatever stands in 
the same connection. Besides, the interpretation of those 
promises concerning the Paraclete in the sense of a pro- 
gressive revelation requires that they should be rigorously 
limited to the apostles, for, otherwise, they give assurance 
of inspiration, as the source of revelation, to the whole 
church in all subsequent ages; and such limitation is in- 
consistent with the account of their fulfilment on the 
day of Pentecost, and with the gift of the Spirit as en- 
joyed by all Christians. Consequently, that interpretation 
which requires that they should be so limited cannot be 
maintained. We shall see hereafter that this notion of a 
progressive revelation, subsequent to that given us by the 
Lord, has exerted a disastrous influence upon theology, and 
upon the whole lite of the church, such, indeed, as to 
render colorable the charge of her enemies, that her actual 
faith is Paulinism rather than Christianity. 

Now all these and similar errors upon this subject seem 
to be closely connected with false or inadequate views of 
the nature of revealed truth, especially with respect to its 
higher and lower, its more or less symbolical forms, in 
which, for different purposes, it is capable of being, and 
often requires to be expressed. But their principal source 
is the failure to discriminate the precise object of Christ’s 
teaching from that which St. Paul had in view, especially 
in his labored discussions with his countrymen. Jor com- 
monly it has been assumed that these objects were one and 
the same, not only in their general character, but even in 
their more special aspects, in which it devolves upon us to 
show that they were very different. Hence, in order to re- 
fute these errors, and to disclose what seems to be the true 
significance of these differences, we shall endeavor to evince 


376 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


two things: First, that the object of St. Paul’s principal 
writings was of a subordinate and limited nature, suitably 
to his position and character as the disciple of a Master, 
namely, to present the truths of the gospel in forms 
specially adapted to meet Jewish difficulties and to con- 
vince the Jewish mind: and, secondly, that the object of 
the Lord’s teaching was of a paramount nature, in accord- 
ance with the pre-eminence of His person and character, 
namely, to reveal the truths of the spiritual world in their 
highest and most adequate forms for the satisfaction of the 
spiritual wants of all mankind. 

We proceed, then, to consider the evidence that the 
apostle had the above special object in view, and that to 
this fact the differential characteristics of his mode of pre- 
senting the truth are chiefly due. 

But here, at the outset, we encounter an objection, which 
immediately occurs to every one, that St. Paul was the 
great apostle of the gentiles, the actual founder of nearly 
all the first gentile churches, and that to these churches his 
principal writings are addressed. How, then, is it possible 
that his leading object should have been to commend the 
gospel to his countrymen? But this objection, which seems 
at first sight as if it might be insuperable, will be found, 
upon closer scrutiny, to confirm what we have undertaken 
to prove. For the people of the Jews, at that time, just as 
they are now, were dispersed abroad throughout the civilized 
world. It has been estimated that there were forty thou- 
sand of them in Antioch on the Orontes, two hundred and 
fifty thousand in Alexandria, upwards of a million in the 
whole of Egypt, and an unknown multitudein Rome. There 
was hardly a gentile city of any importance which had not 
its Jewish synagogue. Hence, wherever the apostle of the 
gentiles, in his missionary travels, was led, he found there 
a colony of his countrymen and co-religionists, among whom 
it was his custom, as it was evidently a dictate of wisdom 
and common sense, to commence his evangelizing labors. 


THE LORD’S TEACHING PARAMOUNT ore 


For in preaching to them, he had the immense advantages 
of a common nationality and descent, a common acquaint- 
ance with the Hebrew language and history, and a com- 
mon appeal to the authority of the Old Testament Scrip- 
tures. But, far above all these, that long course of Divine 
training and preparation for the advent of their promised 
Messiah and the gospel dispensation to which the children 
of Israel had been subjected under their ritual and moral 
laws, the ministry of their prophets, and their wonderful 
providential history, was now complete, and its fruit was 
ripe. Consequently, in so far as this Divine scheme of na- 
tional education had proved a success (which, however, was 
only partial by reason of difficulties to be noticed hereafter) 
they must have been better prepared to understand and ap- 
preciate the gospel than were the gentiles who had enjoyed 
no such advantages. In this way, it came to pass, that the 
very first thing which St. Paul had to do in his work of 
planting churches among the gentiles, was, to adapt his 
teaching to meet the difficulties and win the faith of his 
countrymen. Hence, also, the first churches that were 
organized on gentile ground were chiefly composed of Jew- 
ish converts. We have abundant evidence upon this point 
in the fact, which will be more fully presented in the sequel, 
that they manifested a constant tendency or proneness to 
lose their hold on the distinctive truths of the gospel, and 
to relapse into Jewish errors. For this acknowledged fact, 
which stands out in the early history of the church, is not 
adequately accounted for on the common hypothesis of Ju- 
daizing teachers having crept in amongst them. Such teach- 
ers would never have been able to persuade converts from 
paganism, with all their contempt for Jewish rites, that 
they must be circumcised in order to be saved. Yet this 
was one of the errors in these churches which cost the apos- 
tle the greatest trouble to eradicate, nor did he altogether 
succeed. Hence, as from this point of view we should con- 
fidently anticipate, the longest and most labored of his 


378 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


~ epistles, namely, those to the Romans, the Galatians and the 
Hebrews—if this last be his—consist, in whole or in great 
part, of arguments to refute Judaizing errors, and of such 
presentations of the gospel as were evidently intended, as 
they were eminently adapted, to meet the objections and 
win the faith of the Jewish mind. 

We proceed now to adduce the evidence contained in 
these three epistles, although such evidence is by no means 
confined to them, that it was the leading object of St. 
Paul to present the truths of the gospel in forms specially 
adapted to the spiritual wants of those who had been 
trained under the Mosaic law, rather than of those upon 
whose modes of viewing spiritual things it had never ex- 
erted its all-moulding influence. For in this object we 
shall find the principal source of those peculiarities in his 
teaching which have been indicated, and by which it so 
strikingly differs from that of his Master. Nor ought we 
to be surprised if it should appear, in the course of the 
discussion, that these Pauline forms of truth, the object 
of which was of a limited and subordinate nature, have 
not that universal adaptation to the spiritual wants of 
mankind which has been commonly ascribed to them, and 
which, as we shall see, is eminently characteristic of the 
gospel as delivered by the Lord himself. 

The epistle to the Hebrews, as we might anticipate, 
affords the clearest and most palpable evidence. Tor even 
on the supposition of some high authorities, that it was 
not written by St. Paul, it yet evinces, in the most striking 
manner, how fully the necessity of commending the gos- 
pel to the Jewish mind was recognised, and to what an 
extent Apollos, or some other inspired author, sympa- 
thized with him, and shared _ his labors for the accomplish- 
ment of this object. Accordingly, it is addressed to the 
Hebrews, in distinction from the gentiles, and is wholly 
occupied with arguments and exhortations specially 
adapted to meet their difficulties, and to settle their minds 


THE LORD’S TEACHING PARAMOUNT. 379 


in the faith ot the gospel. With this object ever in view, 
the author discusses a number of subjects which were of 
vital importance to them, but of secondary or no interest 
at all for others. Among these, is the question, whether 
Christ was indeed the Messiah of the Old Testament 
Scriptures, which, evidently, was one for Jews rather than 
for others, because the Divine authority of these Scriptures 
could not be assumed in argument with the heathen, and 
because the form under which Christ could be most fitly 
offered to them was not that of the Jewish Messiah, but 
that of Jesus, the Saviour, who had been crucified and 
raised from the dead for the salvation of mankind. 
Hence we see that St. Paul, in his address to an Athenian 
audience in the hall of the Areopagus, assumed nothing 
from the Scriptures, but quoted a heathen poet in confir- 
mation of his doctrine, and said nothing about the Jewish 
Messiah, but “ preached unto them Jesus and the resurrec- 
tion.” Another question which is argued at length in this 
epistle is, whether the priesthood of Christ was superior to 
that of Levi; and this also was one in which none but Jews 
or Jewish converts could feel any direct or vital interest. 
For whatever might be the errors to which the rest of 
mankind were liable, they could never have fallen into 
this, that the Levitical priesthood was superior to that of 
Christ. They, surely, had no need of instruction on this 
point. What they needed was to be convinced that the 
mediation and sacrifices of their own heathen priests had 
no validity or efficacy to atone for their sins and _ reconcile 
them to God. The whole elaborate discussion in the 
epistle leads to the following and other similar results : 
That the ritual law, with its tabernacle and temple worship, 
its priesthood, sacrifices, feasts and other ceremonies, was 
not of moral or permanent obligation, but was typical and 
temporary in nature and design—“a shadow of good 
things to come;” that it had now been fulfilled and super- 
seded by the mediation and sacrifice of Christ, which alone 


380 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


had an eternal efficacy “ to finish the transgression, and to 
make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for in- 
iquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness.” Now, 
although this presentation contains what is of fundamental 
importance for all men—for how could it express the truth 
of the gospel in any form if it did not ?—yet, in its im- 
mediate design and adaptation, it was directed against 
errors to which only Jews were liable. Yor the gentiles 
had never believed in the Mosaic ritual or sacrifices, and 
no obstacle to their faith in Christ could possibly arise 
from this source. The same view is to be taken of all the 
Jewish errors which are controverted in this epistle—they 
could present no temptation to those who had not been 
trained under the laws of Moses. Consequently, these 
labored arguments and eloquent exhortations against apos- 
tasy to Judaism can have little more than an historical 
and secondary interest for us at the present time. It is not 
here, then, that we are to look for those forms of gospel 
truth which are best adapted to our spiritual necessities. 

The evidence in the epistle to the Galatians, unquestion- 
ably written by St. Paul, is of still greater importance and 
weight. For these churches of Galatia were established in 
the midst of a colony of Gauls or Kelts who had been 
settled in Asia Minor for several centuries, whose ethnic 
character, affinities and modes of thought were as remote as 
possible from those of the Hebrews, and where least of all 
we should have anticipated that a tendency to Jewish errors 
could ever have shown itself. But even these churches, as 
it appears, were chiefly composed of converted Jews, for in 
them this tendency was so strong that it threatened to sub- 
vert their faith in the very principles of the gospel. Hence 
this epistle, from beginning to end, is one elaborate argu- 
ment against the errors of Judaism, which it represents as 
having “ bewitched” the Galatian Christians. The lead- 
ing error upon which the apostle here aims his battery is, 
that circumcision and the observance of the Mosaic law 


THE LORD’S TEACHING PARAMOUNT 381 


were still necessary to acceptance with God; and in order 
to drive this obstinate delusion out of their minds, he labors 
to convince them that they had been emancipated once and 
forever from the yoke of that law by the mediation and 
sacrifice of Christ; that, by faith in Him alone, they were 
completely justified from all their offences ; and he solemnly 
warns them that, if they continued to depend upon their 
ritual observances now that these were abolished, they 
would frustrate, in so far as they themselves were con- 
cerned, all the promises and blessings of the gospel. “O 
foolish Galatians,” he exclaims, ‘‘ who hath bewitched you, 
that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus 
Christ hath been evidently set forth crucified among you? 

.. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, 
being made a curse for us . . . Stand fast, therefore, in the 
liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not 
entangled again in the yoke of bondage. Behold, I Paul say 
unto you that, if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you 
nothing... Christ has become of no effect unto you.” 
Now it is true that errors are here represented to which 
human nature is everywhere liable, and there are profound 
gospel truths here set forth which can never lose their in- 
terest or importance; yet is it abundantly evident that, in 
this whole discussion, it was the apostle’s direct and immedi- 
ate aimto refute these errors under peculiar forms to which 
his countrymen alone were liable, and to exhibit these 
truths in special adaptation to meet their difficulties, and to 
establish their faith. For who but Jews could ever have 
fallen into the error, that circumcision and the observance 
of the Mosaic ritual were necessary to salvation? Conse- 
quently, we are not obliged to accept these special forms of 
truth as those which are best adapted to the spiritual wants 
of mankind at large. 

We have touched lightly upon the Galatians, because, 
in its theme and object, it is identical with the epistle to 
the Romans, and many of its arguments are substantially 


382 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


the same. This latter we propose to examine more partic- 
ularly, as being the longest, most elaborate, and every way 
the most important of all the apostle’s extant writings, in 
which, therefore, we may expect to find most prominent 
that special object of his teachings which has been indi- 
cated, and the fullest evidence of the influence which it 
exerted to mould and shape the peculiar forms in which 
he presents the truths of the gospel. 

Let us observe, then, that, although this epistle was 
written by Paul in his character of the great apostle of the 
gentiles to a church which had been established in the 
centre and capital of the gentile world, yet, like that to 
the Galatians, it consists chiefly of arguments to refute Ju- 
daizing errors, and of such presentations of gospel truth 
as were evidently intended and adapted to win and estab- 
lish the faith of those who had Jewish difficulties to over- 
come. These arguments with his countrymen he com- 
mences about the middle of the second chapter, and carries 
them on, with some interruptions, nearly to the close of the 
eleventh, so that they run through the whole epistle, ex- 
cept the introduction, and the exhortations and greetings 
with which it concludes. It is true, he sometimes turns 
aside from the main drift of his impassioned discourse to 
address and instruct the gentile converts, who must have 
constituted some portion at least of the church in Rome; 
yet what hesays even in such passages is evidently in- 
tended quite as much for the edification of his own country- 
men. Such, e. g., are his declarations that the whole world 
was included with the covenant people in the promises 
and grand objects of the gospel, and that blindness in part 
had happened unto the children of the covenant, until the 
fulness of the gentiles should come in; for the former of 
these statements was adapted to humble Jewish pride, and 
the latter was of interest chiefly for those who stood in 
danger of perishing from that blindness. And through- 
out the epistle, his special object—the instruction and sal- 


THE LORD’S TEACHING PARAMOUNT 383 


vation of his countrymen—is never lost sight of for a 
moment, his direct address is preferably to them; and the 
deepest and most tender interest which he represents him- 
self as having ever at heart is, that they may be converted 
and saved. We have abundant evidence of all this in the 
following quotations, which might be almost indefinitely 
multiplied: ‘“ Behold, thou art called a Jew, and restest 
in the law, and makest thy boast in God, and approvest the 
things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the 
law. .. Know ye not, brethren, for I speak to them that 
know the law?..I say, then, hath God cast away His 
people? God forbid... What shall we say, then, that 
Abraham our father... hath found? ... What advantage, 
then, hath the Jew? and what profit is there of circum- 
cision? Much every way, chiefly because unto them were 
committed the oracles of God... Brethren, my heart’s 
desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be 
saved... For I could wish myself accursed from Christ 
for my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, 
to whom pertaineth the adoption and the glory and the 
covenants and the giving of the law and the service of 
God and the promises, whose are the fathers, and of whom, 
as concerning the flesh, Christ came.” Thus he proceeds 
through the body of the epistle, with his direct address 
preferably to his own countrymen, expressing his deepest 
interest in their welfare, making it his special object to re- 
fute their peculiar errors, and to present the truth in adap- 
tation to their characteristic states of mind, which had 
resulted incidentally from their training under the law. 
Here, also, as in the epistle to the Galatians, the leading 
error against which he contends is that of reliance upon 
the law as the ground of acceptance with God ; in oppo- 
sition to which, he proves that Israel, from the imperfection 
of their obedience and many grievous violations of the law, 
which thundered its penalties against every transgression, 
had no claim whatever to its righteousness, but were ne- 


384 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


cessarily under its condemnation, and as hopelessly lost as 
the gentiles themselves: ‘‘What then? Are we better 
than they? No, in no wise, for we have before proved 
both Jews and gentiles, that they are all under sin.” Con- 
sequently, there rested upon the Jews, as upon all others, 
an overwhelming necessity to find some other way of at- 
taining to righteousness, since that of their own obedience 
was forever closed against them. Here, then, as in the 
other epistle, it is in formal argument with his countrymen, 
in his efforts to reach and convince their minds, that St. 
Paul lays himself out to establish the doctrine of justifica- 
tion by faith; in other words, that of attaining to right- 
eousness without the works of the law by faith alone in 
Christ—“ even the righteousness which is by the faith of 
Jesus Christ.” Accordingly, one of his most telling argu- 
ments, which, indeed, must have had overwhelming force 
with those to whom it was addressed, is, that Abraham 
himself, their great forefather and covenant head, had been 
justified without the works of the law, “which was four 
hundred and thirty years after,” and before he was circum- | 
cised: “ Faith was reckoned unto Abraham for righteous- 
ness... being uncircumcised, that he might be the father 
of all them that believe.” Hence he concludes, by ne- 
cessary logical consequence, that “the deeds of the law” 
could not, but faith must be the condition of their accept- 
ance and peace with God: “ Ye are not under the law, 
but under grace... Being justified by faith, we have 
peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” 

But, now, because this great truth of their deliverance 
from the claims of that law which had been ordained and 
promulgated by God himself with prodigious signs and 
wonders, was one which the Jews, after their fifteen hun- 
dred years of training under legal ordinances, must find it 
extremely hard to comprehend and believe, the apostle 
goes on to unfold and apply it at great length, and with 
all his unrivalled force of argument and illustration. He 


THE LORD’S TEACHING PARAMOUNT 385 


labors to convince them that the law was never intended 
to be a condition of justification, but for an entirely differ- 
ent purpose. ‘Their relation to it he compares with that of 
a woman to her husband, and would persuade them that, 
by the sacrifice of Christ, they were as completely emanci- 
- pated from its claims as the woman is from the authority 
of her husband by his death: “For the woman which hath 
a husband is bound by the law of her husband so long as 
he liveth; but, if her husband be dead, she is loosed from 
the law of her husband... Wherefore, my brethren, ye 
also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ... 
Now we are delivered from the law, that being dead 
wherein we were held.” 

Such, in meagre sketch, is the main drift of the apostle’s 
argument throughout this epistle ; in the course of which, 
however, and in answer to an objection which had been 
raised at an early stage, namely, that, since comparatively 
few Israelites could be persuaded to renounce their hope 
of attaining to righteousness under the law, God seemed 
to have cast away his covenant people—in answer to this 
pressing objection, St. Paul sets forth and insists upon the 
doctrine of election ; and this was one thing which required 
him to give it the prominence which it holdsin his teaching : 
“T say, then, hath God cast away his people? God forbid. 
... For they are not all Israel which are of Israel... God 
hath not cast away his people whom He foreknew... 
Tsrael hath not obtained that which he seeketh for, but the 
election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded... 
There is a remnant according to the election of grace... 
For whom He did foreknow He also did predestinate to 
be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be 
the first-born among many brethren. Moreover, whom 
He did predestinate them He also called; and whom’ He 
called them He also justified; and whom He justified 
them He also glorified.” 

Thus i see how great and all-controlling an object it 

1 


386 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


was with St. Paul to refute the errors, meet the objections, 
and present the truths of the gospel so as to convince the 
minds and win the faith of his countrymen; and how 
great an influence this object had in shaping his doctrinal 
presentations is indicated by the fact, which has been 
brought out, that in these arguments chiefly he develops 
and applies those special forms of truth by the prominence 
of which his teaching is so remarkably distinguished from 
that of Christ. 

Nor can we conceive of a more effectual method to con- 
vince the Jews of the insufficiency of Judaism, and to turn 
their faith and hope of salvation upon Christ alone, than 
that which is adopted in these epistles. Jor the need of 
justification, or righteousness, was that form of spiritual 
want which, in the Jew, from his thirty generations of 
training under the law, was paramount over all others. 
In fact, after his sensibility to all others had been well 
nigh lost, this one, as is evident from the prodigious de- 
velopment of his Pharisaic self-righteousness, continued to 
press upon his soul. Consequently, he could never do 
without some way of attaining to righteousness. ‘To him 
no offer of salvation which did not include this could ever, 
by any possibility, be made acceptable or credible. Hence, 
as soon as he came to see that his acceptance with God as 
righteous under the law was forever impossible, and that 
Abraham himself had been justified without any such 
righteousness, his understanding must have been opened, 
if by any means this were possible, to appreciate the evi- 
dence of that new and living way of attaining to right- 
eousness which the gospel provided. Indeed, nothing 
remained for him but to seck it in this way, or to remain 
forever under the soul-destroying condemnation of sin. 

But, now, it is evident, when we come to consider it, 
that this peculiar form in which the truth was presented 
by St. Paul to his countrymen, with the special object to 
open the way of salvation to them, although implicitly it 


THE LORD’S TEACHING PARAMOUNT 387 


contains the very heart and marrow of evangelical truth, 
and consequently what is indispensable to the spiritual 
wants of all mankind, is not equally well adapted to their 
necessities, and could never have had the same attractions 
for them that it had for the Jewish mind. For they could 
not feel, as did the Jew, this need of being justified or ac- 
cepted as righteous, because that training under the law 
out of which it grew had never been brought to bear upon 
them. In fact, it may be questioned whether this peculiar 
form of spiritual want is ever felt, except by those who 
have been educated into it, either as Jews, or under Juda- 
izing systems of theology. For if any plain man who has 
not been so educated be asked now, whether he feels the 
need of being accepted as righteous, he will hardly under- 
stand what is meant; and if it be explained to him, prob- 
ably he will answer: No, I am not conscious of any such 
need, for I know that I am not righteous, and what good 
could it do me to be taken for what I am not? Butif 
such a man be asked: Do you feel any need of the forgive- 
ness of your sins, and of being reconciled to God? and if 
he have any seriousness of mind, or feeling of spiritual 
want in any form, he can hardly fail to answer: I certainly 
do, for I know that I am asinner, and that I have become 
alienated from God by my erring and worldly life. Here, 
then, we see that the Pauline doctrine of justification by 
faith, although it contains implicitly a fundamental truth 
of the gospel, upon which, as Luther rightly discerned, 
the church must stand, does not present this truth in that 
form in which the need of it is, or can be universally 
felt. 

The universal form of this want is that of the forgive- 
ness of sins, of reconciliation and peace with God. This 
is abundantly evident from the experience of mankind, as 
indicated above, and it is revealed with absolute authority 
in the fact, that the gospel, as delivered by our Lord Jesus 
Christ, whilst it contains no formal statement of justifica- 


388 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


tion by faith, is always, or preferably, directed and adapted 
to meet and satisfy this want of the forgiveness of sins. 
Thus, in the case of the publican who went up into the tem- 
ple to pray, and who, “standing afar off, would not lift up 
so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, 
saying, God be merciful to me a sinner”’—this truly peni- 
tent soul does not seem to have felt any need of being ac- 
cepted as righteous—certainly he expresses no such feeling, 
It is for mercy, the forgiveness of his sins, that he bows 
his head, and smites upon his breast, and cries to God: 
whilst it is the Pharisee, with whom he is contrasted through- 
out, who feels the need of being accepted as righteous, and 
who must convince himself that he is righteous, or he can- 
not live. True, it is said that this publican “went 
down to his house justified ;’ but here this word, as every- 
where else in our Lord’s discourses, is not to be taken in 
its strict Pauline sense, but only as expressing that the man 
obtained the mercy for which he prayed—that God ac- 
cepted his prayer, and himself as being penitent—for it 
is interpreted in this general sense by its use in such decla- 
rations of the Lord as the following: “Wisdom is justi- 
fied of her children. ... By thy words thou shalt be justi- 
fied, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.” Again, 
in “the parable of parables,” that of the prodigal son, which 
exhibits the Lord’s own map or chart of the wandering 
soul’s return to God, and of the manner in which it is re- 
ceived, there is not a word about justification or righteous- 
ness, but the wanderer returns from his swine-troughs with 
penitence and confession, and-is welcomed to his father’s 
house and his father’s table as a forgiven and reconciled 
sinner, whose transgressions shall never more be remem- 
bered against him Another case is that of the penitent 
woman who anointed the Lord’s feet with precious oint- 
ment, having washed them with her tears, and wiped them 
with the hairs of her head.—Oh, how beautiful it is !—Of 
her He said, “Her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for 


THE LORD’S TEACHING PARAMOUNT 389 


she loved much ;” and to her, “Thy sins are forgiven.” 
In like manner, to the paralytic let down through the roof 
of a house He said, ‘Son, be of good cheer, thy sins are 
forgiven thee,” as if that were all the spiritual consolation 
of which the man could feel any need. And when the 
scribes charged Him with blasphemy for these words, He 
added, “‘ For whether is easier to say, Thy sins be forgiven 
thee, or to say, Arise and walk? But that ye may know 
that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins— 
then saith He to the sick of the palsy, Arise, take up thy 
bed, and go to thy house.” In fine—tor we must limit 
ourselves to a few examples of innumerable similar decla- 
rations—we have the same presentation in what He says 
of those who were judicially blinded, “that seeing they 
might see and not perceive, and hearing they might hear 
and not understand, lest at any time they might be con- 
verted, and their sins should be forgiven them.” 

It is thus that this universal want of the human soul, 
and what the gospel provides to satisfy it, are set forth 
by the Lord, in distinction from that peculiar presentation 
of both which we find in the writings of St. Paul. Nor 
should we be surprised at this, or other differences. or 
it could not reasonably be expected that the Master, with 
the paramount aim to meet the spiritual wants of human 
nature, without specific reference to that limited section of 
it with which He came into personal contact, should de- 
liver the truths of the spiritual world in precisely the 
same forms in which they were subsequently formulated 
by his inspired apostle for the special and subordinate 
purpose of convincing and persuading his countrymen, 
who had been peculiarly trained for so many generations 
under the Mosaic law. But we must ever bear in mind 
that these differences are merely those of form and pres- 
entation. For it is evident on the face of the record that 
the forgiveness of sins, in the teaching of Christ, is not 
the bare remittance of legal penalties, but it includes also 


390 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


complete restoration to the favor and love of God, in fact, 
all that St. Paul so earnestly presses on his countrymen 
under the form of justification and the righteousness 
which is by faith alone. : 

A similar view is to be taken of the doctrine of election, 
to which the apostle gives such prominence, in contrast 
with the fact, that itis only alluded to, though certainly 
implied and assumed, in the teaching of his Master. For 
not only did this doctrine answer the objection, that com- 
paratively few of the covenant people actually embraced 
the gospel, but it was eminently adapted to disarm their 
opposition, and to win their faith. For it embodied a 
principle of the Divine government and providence which 
had been familiar to them throughout their whole history, 
and which had uniformly operated in their favor. This 
had been signally exemplified in the original calling of 
Abraham out of his country and kindred to become their 
national founder and covenant head. Thus, also, Ishmael 
had been rejected, and Isaac had been elected, so that all 
the covenant promises, privileges and blessings should be 
transmitted in the line of his posterity. In the same way, 
Jacob had been preferred before Esau, to whom all the 
patriarchal institutions and customs assigned the birthright 
and headship of the family: “That the purpose of God 
according to ‘election might stand...As it is written, 
Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.” In like man- 
ner, David had been chosen out of the eight goodly sons of 
Jesse, though the youngest of them all, and exalted from 
- the sheep folds to become the royal shepherd and sweet 
psalmist of Israel, their greatest national hero, from whose 
loins the Messiah himself should descend. In fine, other 
innumerable instances being passed over, it was in the ex- 
ercise of God’s electing grace that they themselves had 
been selected from all mankind to be His covenant and 
peculiar people, to whom His sacred oracles should be 
committed, together with the glory of the shekinah, the 


THE LORD’S TEACHING PARAMOUNT 391 


temple service, and all the other privileges and blessings 
of their high vocation. Hence this doctrine of election, 
and the principle of the Divine government which it rep- 
resented, must have been peculiarly dear and admirably 
adapted to commend the gospel in which it was em- 
bosomed to every Jewish heart. But manifestly it could 
have no such attraction, nor any such adaptation to win 
the faith or awaken the hopes of the gentiles, who had 
enjoyed no such training under electing grace: on the con- 
trary, it could not fail to discourage and repel them for 
the reason, that, hitherto, it had always discriminated 
against them, had operated to their disadvantage and ex- 
clusion from the covenant privileges and blessings. Here, 
therefore, we have one great reason why this doctrine is 
brought forward into such prominence in the writings of 
St. Paul, and why, in the teaching of Christ, it is only 
alluded to, and, in comparison with other truths, is left in 
abeyance. 

Also, the special object which the apostle had so much 
at heart goes far to explain his logical and systematic pres- 
entation of truth. This, indeed, may be due in part to 
his peculiar intellectual constitution and education, but it 
cannot be adequately comprehended without taking into 
view the necessity under which he was placed to refute, by 
logical processes, the objections of his countrymen, and to 
harmonize, in a rational manner, the vast and sweeping 
changes introduced by the new dispensation with all that 
had gone before in their wonderful providential history. 
For during forty generations of mankind they had been 
the elect people of God, to the exclusion of all other 
nations; and, now, they could be such no longer, but the 
gentiles, their eternal enemies, yea, the uncircumcised and 
unclean, were to stand on an equality with them before the | 
God of Israel. For thirty generations, they had been 
rigorously trained under that all-moulding system of legal 
ordinances and ritual observances which God himself, by 


392 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


Moses their great prophet, had enjoined upon them, as “an 
everlasting statute...an ordinance forever ;” and, now, 
all this was tobe swept away as with a besom. Even 
the moral law itself, which had been proclaimed to them 
by the voice of God in thunder-words from the summit 
of Mount Sinai—what could Saul of Tarsus mean when 


he talked to them about this law’s having been fulfilled | 


by another for them, and of their being delivered from its 
claims? Why did he not try to convince them that fire 
would not burn, nor water drown? It is impossible for 
us, at this day, to appreciate the enormous difficulties and 
almost insuperable obstacles which these sweeping 
changes must have placed in the way of the acceptance 
of the gospel by the children of Israel. In fact, 
these obstacles seem to have more than neutralized, with 
the great body of the nation, all the influences which their 
education and training under the law were intended and 
adapted to exert upon them by way of preparation. It 
was in this way, doubtless, that Israel did not obtain that 
which he sought, but the election obtained it, and the rest 
were blinded. Hence we sce that a most pressing necessity 
rested upon St. Paul, in his labors for their salvation, to 
convince them that these astonishing changes were truly 
and properly developments of germs contained in, and con- 
sequently that they were in perfect harmony with, all their 
preceding revelations and history. But this, evidently, he 
could not do without applying to the whole subject his 
great powers of logical analysis, and treating it in a sys- 
tematic manner. But there was no such necessity for a 
harmonized scheme of truth to commend the gospel to the 
gentiles, because they had not been trained under these 
preceding revelations, and had no such providential history. 
This, however, is only a partial explanation of the striking 
fact (which will require to be more fully elucidated in the 
sequel) that the truth, as presented by the Lord himself, 
has nothing of a systematic form or character. 


THE LORD’S TEACHING PARAMOUNT 393 


We come now to exhibit the direct evidence of the pre- 
eminent and paramount object and character of the Lord’s 
teaching ; in other words, that it was intended to reveal 
the truths of the spiritual world in their highest and most 
adequate forms, as adapted to meet and satisfy the spiritual 
wants of all mankind alike, without specific reference to 
states of mind which were peculiar to the Jewish people. 

We observe, then, paradoxical as it may be, that Christ 
was no Jew. Though of the seed of Abraham and Israel, 
of the tribe of Judah, and of the royal line of David, as 
concerning the flesh, we cannot even imagine Him with 
the distinctive type of Jewish features. The Christian 
church has iever been able so to conceive or represent His 
personal appearance. The earliest representation of it 
which has come down to us, and which, however short it 
may fall of being a correct likeness, certainly gives us the 
idea of His person which was impressed upon the minds 
of the primitive Christians, is as far as possible from being 
that of a Jew. The author once had the fortune to see a 
fancy portrait of the Lord, with strongly marked Jewish 
features, and he hopes never to see another, for it was re- 
volting in the extreme, and such, he is well assured, it 
must have been to all Christians, except those of Jewish 
descent. Nor is there anything more wonderful or miracu- 
lous, when we consider how He was born and brought up, 
than His sublime exaltation above the prejudices and pecu- 
liar forms of thought, the character and whole life, of His 
countrymen and kindred. He did not take upon himself, 
in His incarnation, the nature of the Jew in distinction 
from the rest of mankind, but the nature of man, our com- 
mon humanity. Consequently, He never speaks of him- 
self as a Jew, nor of His brethren or kindred according to 
the flesh, after the manner of St. Paul. On the contrary, 
He disclaims, in some sort, His own blood relations. or 
when, on a certain occasion, it was said to Him: “Thy 


mother and thy brethren stand without desiring to speak 
keg 


394 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


with thee... He answered, Who is my mother? and who 
are my brethren? .. For whosoever shall do the will of my 
Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother and 
sister and mother.” Even His mother He never addresses 
by this dear and sacred name, but always simply as woman 
—“ Woman, what have I to do with thee?’ And when 
she stood by his cross with the prophetic sword in her 
heart, He committed her to the care of His beloved disci- 
ple, saying: “ Woman, behold thy son.” Of himself He 
always speaks either as “the Son of God,” or “the Son of 
Man,” thereby signifying that He was the perfect embodi- 
ment and only adequate manifestation of God, and that 
He included in himself and represented our common hu- 
manity as no other ever did or could do. 

Now, with these views of the incarnation and person of 
the Lord, it can be no surprise to us, that He should give, 
in His teaching, no special prominence to doctrinal forms 
having any special relation to Jewish states of mind, such 
as those of election and justification. And here we have 
one great reason, why His personal ministry found so little 
acceptance with His countrymen, when “ He came to his 
own, and his own received Him not.” For although there 
were other causes of their fierce and rancorous hatred, which 
was such that it could be satisfied with nothing short of 
His ignominious and cruel death, yet we must bear in 
mind, that it did not lie in “ the determinate counsel and 
foreknowledge of God,” that they should receive the gos- 
pel, until it should be commended unto them by that pecu- 
liar adaptation of it to their spiritual wants for which St. 
Paul was to be raised up and inspired. From these views, 
also, we might anticipate that, as delivered by the Lord, 
it would have that universal and perfect adaptation to the 
spiritual wants of mankind, irrespective of the distinction 
between Jew and gentile, which we have seen that it has 
in the case of the forgiveness of sins; moreover, that all 
its truths from His mouth would be declared in the highest 


THE LORD’S TEACHING PARAMOUNT 395 


and most adequate forms of which they are capable in hu- 
man language. But this is what we must now undertake 
to show. 

Here, then, it is necessary to take into consideration that 
old common-place the significance of which, however, has 
never yet been exhausted, namely, that all great truths are 
manifold and many-sided. Hence it seldom occurs that 
any one definite expression can vive more than a single as- 
pect of such a truth, whilst it necessarily leaves out many 
others, some of which may be of equal and perhaps greater 
importance. Moreover, the highest, and indeed all truths 
of the spiritual world are transcendent and ineffabie, that is 
to say, they cannot be adequately conceived of by the human 
faculties, much less adequately formulated and expressed in 
human words. The reason of this is, that they belong to 
the realm of the infinite, whilst all our faculties are finite, 
and all our words have necessarily a defining and limiting 
power. Such truths are God, in His being, attributes, 
purposes and providence ; the soul of man, in its self-con- 
sciousness, freedom, morality and immortality ; holiness 
and sin, mediation and redemption, heaven and hell—for 
what are all these but unfathomable mysteries to the finite 
‘ntellect 2 Our most enlarged and perfect comprehension 
of them can be nothing better than an infant’s conception 
of the solar system. Without the full and constant rec- 
ognition of this truth, it is impossible to understand aright 
the revelation which God has given us. For even the 
parallelisms of Hebrew poetry, which represent the same 
idea in two balanced clauses, one supplementing the other— 
this mode of expression evidently sprang from a deep 
feeling in the sacred writers, that their best words were 
inadequate to their conceptions of spiritual truths, and their 
conceptions to the truths themselves. Hence, also, they 
instinctively lay hold upon metaphor, similitude, analogy: 
—upon all the manifold forms of symbolization—aiming 
thereby to excite the sensibilities, stimulate the imagination, 


396 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


exalt and quicken all the intellectual faculties, in order to a 
more enlarged receptivity of the truths which they 
reveal. 

In consequence of this manifold, transcendent and in- 
effable nature of Divine truth, it cannot be fully expressed 
even in the words of the most plenary inspiration. The 
Holy Scriptures, therefore, are not to be interpreted as 
complete revelations, but they are to be regarded rather as 
index fingers pointing upwards and directing us where to 
look, in order that we may see for ourselves as much as we 
have capacity and insight for seeing of the things which 
words can only indicate. In all their fulness they give us 
nothing more than glimpses into the infinite. That which 
is revealed and can be known by us bears no proportion to 
that which is unrevealed and incapable of being known. 
At the same time, it is certain that all truth is one, and, 
consequently, every particular part of it which has been 
revealed bears relations to, and is conditioned and modified 
by, every other part of the great whole which remains un- 
known. We have the most striking examples of this in the 
modifications which were effected in the revelations of the 
Old Testament by the more full and perfect disclosures of the 
New, especially where the Lord by his own teaching com- 
pletes or even supersedes what had been “said to them of 
old time.” 

Now, from all this it seems abundantly evident, that the 
truths of the invisible and spiritual world, as revealed to 
us, are incapable of being adequately systematized. For 
these glimpses into the infinite are comparatively so few 
and remote from each other that the logical connections 
between them cannot be accurately traced out. They con- 
stitute so small a part of the great whole to which they 
belong; they must be conceived of as bearing so many 
and such vital, yet such indeterminate relations to the in- 
finite unknown; the forms in which they are expressed 
are necessarily so inadequate to the reality—that every 


THE LORD’S TEACHING PARAMOUNT 397 


systematic view which can be taken of them by the finite 
mind, if it be regarded as absolute, or other than incom- 
plete and provisional, cannot fail to misinterpret or distort 
them, and must prove the source of innumerable errors 
and practical evils. A partial system, so constructed, and 
taken for no more than what it truly is, may, indeed, have 
its uses for the accomplishment of subordinate objects, as 
in the case of St. Paul’s writings to convince his country- 
men, but certainly it can never give to the transcendent 
truths of the spiritual world their highest forms and most 
adequate expression. We might as well undertake to con- 
struct the map or chart of a coast from the light-houses 
which beam from its headlands, leaving out the bays, in- 
lets, mouths of rivers and other indentations and projec- 
tions which lie between. Such an imperfect sketch, re- 
garded in its true character, might have its uses, but, 
taken as an accurate representation of the whole coast, it 
could lead to nothing but shipwreck and disaster. 

Here, then, we have a good and sufficient reason why 
our Lord adopted and consistently followed that highly 
figurative and unsystematic method by which his teaching 
is so eminently distinguished from that of His apostle 
Paul. No other, in fact, was possible to Him, as the re- 
vealer of the spiritual world in the highest and most per- 
fect forms in which it could be made known to us. For 
if he had undertaken to define and systematize the truth, 
to eliminate its antinomies, to harmonize its apparently 
conflicting aspects by tracing out the logical connections 
between His vast and concrete utterances, it would have 
been necessary for Him to reveal the whole infinite of 
truth, which was impossible, or to clothe these glimpses 
and fragments of it in lower and less adequate forms; in 
which latter case, He must have renounced the pre-eminent 
character and object in and for which, as “a Teacher sent 
from God,” He had come into the world. 

We come now to inquire how it came to pass that this 


098 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


discrimination between the character and object of the 
Lord’s teaching and that of St. Paul in his controversies 
with his countrymen, was not made by the great reformers 
of the sixteenth century, and to what extent the history of 
the Protestant church has been affected by regarding these 
objects as identical, or as on a par with each other. Nor 
ought we to be surprised if we should find that, from this 
cause alone, the church’s understanding of the nature of 
revealed truth, her appreciation of the importance of 
catholic unity, her systems of theology, confessions of 
faith, creeds and preaching are all very different from 
what they would otherwise have been. 

It seems quite evident, then, that the great minds of the 
reformation were prevented from making this discrimina- 
tion by the relations which the Protestant movement bore 
to the papacy. Jor, as is well known, the church of 
Rome, at that time, had reached her utmost development, 
both in her priestly hierarchy, and in the Arminian or 
anti-A ugustine character of her theology. What are called 
the Augustinian and Calvinistic, but which are properly 
the Pauline forms of doctrine, had well-nigh or quite dis- 
appeared from her teaching. Her leading theologians no 
longer perceived, as Augustine and Ambrose and Anselm 
had done, that those forms of truth upon which St. Paul 
had so strenuously insisted, though specially adapted to 
meet the difficulties and convince the minds of his country- 
men, did yet contain the very heart and marrow of the 
gospel, as taught by the Master. In fact, the Scriptures 
themselves, from a variety of causes, had become a sealed 
book to the people, and were but little known even to the 
clergy. It was in this state of things that the reformers 
arose, and the first thing they did was to throw open the 
Bible. They studied it for themselves, and taught it to 
the people. Thus the great struggle and conflict com- 
menced which shook the world to its foundations. Now, 
in this conflict, the most vital and the paramount interest 


THE LORD’S TEACHING PARAMOUNT 399 


of Protestantism was that of successful resistance against 
the overshadowing authority and power of Rome; for to 
fail in this was to fail in everything. Hence it is hardly 
possible for us, at this day, to imagine how great was the 
delight of the reformers when, in their study of the Bible, 
they discovered in the Pauline epistles a perfect thesaurus 
of arguments against the papacy, not only against its Ar- 
minian theology, in St. Paul’s systematic presentation of 
the decrees, foreordination, election and justification by 
faith, but, also, against its priestly hierarchy, founded upon 
and modeled after that of the Jewish church—that hierar- 
chy which the great apostle had overthrown. Conse- 
quently and inevitably these epistles, which supplied the 
reformers with their keenest weapons for the conflict in 
which success was everything to them and their cause, came 
to exert a greater influence upon their minds, to shape their 
doctrines and mould their faith, than all the other Scrip- 
tures. It was under this all-moulding influence that they 
were led to adopt and imitate St. Paul’s logical, argumenta- 
tive and systematic presentations of truth, as the highest 
form of which it was capable, in preference to the alogical, 
unsystematic, figurative and symbolical forms in which it 
had been clothed by the other sacred writers in general, 
and, especially, by the Master himself. ‘Thus it was that, 
in the all-controlling interest of making good their protest 
against Rome, they constructed their systems of theology, 
confessions of faith and creeds bodily out of St. Paul’s 
writings, rather than as an unbiased expression of the 
truth, gathered from, and representing the whole word of 
God, with highest reference to the forms of Christ’s teach- 
ing ; nor could it have been otherwise in the circumstances 
in which they were placed. 

The consequences of this systematizing spirit or tendency, 
which was thus developed in the church of the reformation 
beyond all that had ever before been known, even among 
the scholastic theologians, could not fail to prove disas- 


400 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


trous. For although it springs from an innate striving 
after unity in our knowledge, which is common to human 
nature and, although it has many important uses, yet it 
requires to be held under severe restraint, after the Lord’s 
own example, because it is naturally impatient, and the 
love of system is ever liable to become stronger than the 
love of truth, which is one most copious source of error. 
For, under its influence, we are sorely tempted to mis- 
understand, or to explain away, or even to deny the most 
obvious facts and truths whenever they prove refractory, 
as they frequently do, and refuse to take their places quietly 
in the speculative systems which we construct for their ac- 
commodation. But most disastrous are these consequences 
in the domain of theology and religion. Jor since, as we 
have seen, it requires the knowledge of the whole truth to 
construct the true system, and all the revelations we have 
amount to no more than glimpses into the infinite, it is im- 
possible to concentrate these scattered rays in one focus 
without deflecting and distorting them ; in other words, 
these fragmentary truths cannot be placed in logical rela- 
tions with each other without shaping them into other 
forms than those in which they stand in the Divine word. 
Moreover, each several truth of the gospel is so vast in it- 
self, and involves such all-absorbing interests, that it can 
easily come to fill the most capacious mind, to the exclusion 
of other truths equally important, and no less clearly re- 
vealed. In this way, some minds become filled with the 
revelations which God has given of His goodness and 
mercy and love, and not being able to harmonize these 
with other attributes in the infinitude of the Divine nature, 
they are thus led to deny His justice, and, with their ut- 
most diligence and ingenuity, to explain away all those in- 
numerable passages of Scripture in which it is affirmed and 
emphasized, Such persons become universalists. Others, 
taking the freedom of man’s will, which is matter of con- 
sciousness no less than of revelation, as the all-controlling 


THE LORD’S TEACHING PARAMOUNT 401 


principle of their theological speculations, and not being 
able to bring this great truth into logical consistency with 
the decrees of God, do not hesitate to impugn the Divine 
sovereignty, nor even, in some cases, to deny the Divine 
foreknowledge. Hence we have Arminianism. Con- 
versely, yet by a precisely similar process, the absoluteness 
of the decrees is sometimes made to rule out the freedom 
of the human will and man’s responsibility, the result of 
which is fatalism and antinomianism. In like manner, 
there are those who insist exclusively upon the humanity of 
Christ, and deny His divinity, thus becoming unitarians ; 
~ whilst the orthodox, who strenuously affirm His divinity, 
often lose the practical significance and benefit of the doc- 
trine of His true and proper humanity, even when they 
would be greatly shocked at the thought of denying it in 
words. 

Here, now, we have the root and principle of all those vast 
and hostile systems of theology, and of all the schisms, 
sects, sectarian strifes and controversies to which Prote- 
stantism has given such prodigious birth. They have all 
sprung from failure to recognize, in the unsystematic teach- 
ing of Christ, the highest and most adequate forms of 
which the truths of the spiritual world are capable in 
human word, and from adopting, in place of these, St. Paul’s 
method of presentation, which was employed by him for a 
special and subordinate object, and which was never in- 
tended to supersede, as it has been made to do, the higher 
and only adequate method of St. Paul’s Master. This it is 
which has shivered the Protestant church into a thousand 
disjointed and angular fragments, such that they no longer 
fit together as the “living stones” of that “spiritual 
house” which God would build for His own everlasting 
habitation. It is this which has well nigh obliterated from 
the bosoms of her people and clergy even the sentiment of 
catholic unity, together with the knowledge of that vital 
and indissoluble connection which subsists between this 


402 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


unity and the conversion of the world. “ Hence, also, 
which otherwise is the most inexplicable fact of the whole 
history of the church, whilst she was thus occupied in 
rending the body of her Lord limb from limb, and in 
scattering His bleeding members as far apart from each 
other as possible, she seems to have lost, together with the 
sentiment of catholic unity, all consciousness of her char- 
acter as Christ’s missionary society for the salvation of the 
world—the very object of her existence. For during the 
two hundred years subsequent to the reformation, the 
Protestant church never sent a missionary to the heathen. 
When it was proposed to do so, her leading minds scouted 
the idea. And now it is quite evident that the re-awaken- 
ing of primitive sentiments on this subject, and the nascent 
striving after the restoration of catholic unity, of which 
she is becoming conscious, are chiefly due to the influence 
of the missionary spirit and work. 

We have yet to consider the character of the preaching 
which has prevailed in the church of the reformation, and 
which, of course, has been governed and moulded by her 
theology, confessions and creeds. For it has presented the 
truths of the gospel in the forms given them by St. Paul, 
rather than in those which they have in the teaching of 
Christ. It has been eminently systematic, logical and 
argumentative, rather than figurative, authoritative and 
practical, insisting more on the eredenda—what is to be 
believed—than on the agenda—what is to be done. It has 
been more occupied with the doctrines of predestination, 
election, and justification by faith than with the person and 
work of Christ, the forgiveness of sins, and salvation by 
faith. ‘These statements, however, may require some quali- 
fication, especially from he rise He spread of Methodism, 
which must be understood as a protest and reaction against 
the above prevailing tendencies. That this is the character 
of the great Methodist movement is evident, among other 
and better things, from the notorious ondervaluation which 


THE LORD’S TEACHING PARAMOUNT 403 


it places upon the writings of St. Paul. Yet, in connection 
with this error, it has been led to a better appreciation 
than otherwise it might have attained of the forms of truth 
in the Lord’s personal teaching, as peculiarly adapted to 
the masses of mankind. Hence the vast influence which it 
exerts upon the less cultivated classes, and the unparalleled 
growth of the denomination. 

Meanwhile, the doctrinal preaching which has prevailed 
in most of the Protestant communions has continued to rep- 
resent St. Paul’s discussions with his countrymen, rather 
than Christ’s proclamations of the gospel to mankind. It 
still addresses gentile congregations in those forms of truth 
which were originally intended and adapted to meet Jewish 
difficulties, and to commend the gospel to the Jewish mind, 
precisely as if the people had been born and educated Jews. 
It warns them against Judaizing errors, to which they have 
never had any temptation, whilst their real dangers often 
lie in the opposite direction. It offers them salvation under 
the form of being accepted as righteous, and spends itself 
in abstruse and elaborate discussions, after the manner of 
St. Paul, to render it acceptable to them in this form, when 
they have never felt the need of any such righteousness, 
but their souls, it may be, are crying out for the pardon 
of their sins and reconciliation with God. It takes no less 
pains to convince them that they are delivered from the 
law, as a condition of justification, than if they had the 
same difficulties on this point with those who for thirty 
generations “were kept under the law, shut up unto the 
faith which should afterwards be revealed.” And if it 
were not that common sense has had some little influence 
to neutralize speculative absurdities, it would still be 
laboring to convince the people that the ritual law was of 
temporary obligation, that it has been fulfilled and super- 
seded by the sacrifice of Christ, that circumcision is no 
longer necessary, and that the priesthood of Christ is 
superior to that of Aaron—of all which, in so far as 


404 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


they believe anything, they have never had a doubt, and 
which never had a particle of interest for any but Jews. 

It must be acknowledged, howeyer, that this preaching 
formerly had enormous power with the people, which can 
be comprehended only from the peculiar circumstances in 
which the church was placed. For whilst the paramount 
object of all Protestant Christians was that of success in 
their life-and-death struggle with the power of Rome, these 
Pauline forms of doctrine—justification by faith, predes- 
tination and election—were their battle-cry in defence of 
their dearest liberties, and against their deadliest enemies, 
Hence their interest in sermons in which these doctrines 
were the staple of argument and the themes of impas- 
sioned declamation could be sustained hour after hour, on 
each occasion; and from their worshipping assemblies 
they went away rejoicing and triumphing in the victories 
which, through the valiant leadership of their favorite 
ministers, they had thus achieved over Antichrist. This 
is the secret of that vast power which this preaching un- 
deniably possessed, whilst the great conflict raged with 
doubtful results throughout the civilized world. 

But the circumstances of the church have become very 
different now that the ultimate triumph of the Protestant 
cause is no longer doubtful, and success in this conflict is 
no longer the paramount interest. For Rome has been 
shorn of her temporal and persecuting power; the cur- 
rents of human thought and advancing civilization have 
all set in against the Vatican; now it is felt that indiffer- 
ence to religion, scepticism, infidelity and immorality are 
enemies more to be feared than the effete papacy. Conse- 
quently this preaching, in the manner and forms of St. 
Paul’s epistles rather than in those of Christ’s teaching, 
has lost its interest for the people—an interest which it 
can never more regain. For it is self-evident that the 
logical and abstruse discussions in these epistles cannot be 
intelligently comprehended by any but well-educated and 


THE LORD’S TEACHING PARAMOUNT 405 


trained minds; nor could it have been anticipated by the 
apostle that they would be intelligible to the common peo- 
ple among the gentiles, for, as we have seen, they were 
not originally addressed to them, but to those who had 
inherited the results of fifteen hundred years’ education 
and training in the ideas which constituted the staple of 
his arguments, and to whom these ideas were as familiar 
as household words. Such preaching could not fail to lose 
its power, because it does not feed the souls of the people. 
When they ask for bread, it offers them, not, indeed, a 
stone, but spiritual food prepared and seasoned for Jewish 
palates, for which they have no genuine relish or appetite. 
Hence the churches which were formerly crowded are now 
so thinly attended, whilst great masses of the people have 
fallen out altogether from under the influence of the gos- 
pel, have become hopelessly alienated from the religion of 
their fathers, and are living, if life it can be called, in a 
state of Godlessness which is worse than heathenism. For 
it has been estimated that, of the four millions of inhabit- 
- ants of the city of London, not more than four hundred 
thousand have ever seen the inside of a church. The 
large cities of America are hardly in a better condition ; 
whilst, of those who continue to attend the worship of the 
sanctuary, there are multitudes who prefer the grossest 
sensational exhibitions in the pulpit to this kind of “ doc- 
trinal preaching :” and not without reason do they prefer 
that which awakens some sort of emotion to this which 
produces none at all. 

If, now, we have rightly appreciated the significance of 
these differences between our Lord Jesus Christ and His 
apostle Paul, with respect to the forms in which they ex- 
hibit the truth of the gospel, it would seem that we need 
another reformation hardly inferior to that of the sixteenth 
century. In fact, the man to head such a movement is the 
great want of our time. We want another Luther, who 
shall be able to free his mind from the authority of the 


406 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


last three hundred years of the church’s history, to think 
himself out of the errors in which he must have been 
born and educated, as the great and heroic souls of that 
day had to do—a man with Luther’s pen for the intelli- 
gent and cultivated, and Luther’s voice for the masses of 
the people—the times in which we live cry out for such a 
man, and it would seem that his advent cannot be much 
longer delayed. 

What, then, from the preceding discussion, may we 
humbly and reverently anticipate will be the burden of 
his message when he comes? If we have not erred alto- 
gether, he can hardly fail to treat with some of Luther’s 
scorn the notion of a progress in the revelations of the 


New Testament, by means of disciples and subordinates, 


beyond those which were delivered by the Master himself. 
He will recognize, in the unsystematic and symbolical 
teaching of Christ, the highest, most adequate, and every 
way the most perfect forms of which the truths of the 
spiritual world are capable in human words. He will 
brand with some of Luther’s contempt that systematizing 
spirit and method which presumes to exhibit, for the sup- 


ply of the spiritual wants of mankind, a more symmetrical . 


and harmonious scheme of doctrine than that which Christ 
himself revealed; which perverts and distorts the revela- 
tions of His mouth; which misunderstands one of His 
declarations, explains away another, and denies everything 
which cannot be successfully manipulated; in order that 
the mutilated remnants may be made to fit and dovetail to- 
gether in logical connections, He will find in the schism of 
Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin by the 
worship of the golden calves—in consequence of which the 
people of God were involved in long and bloody civil wars, 
so that they could no longer subdue the heathen, but were 
themselves subdued and carried away into captivity and 
bondage to the powers of this world, from which only a 
remnant ever returned—in all this terrible historic symbol, 


THE LORD’S TEACHING PARAMOUNT A07 


our coming Luther will find prefigured, in graphic details, 
the schisms, sectarianism and theological wars of the last 
three hundred years, during which the church lost all con- 
sciousness of her high calling to save the heathen, set up 
the idolatry of material wealth and comfort, and sold her- 
self into captivity to the world. With trumpet voice he 
will recall the remnant of God’s people out of this worse 
than Babylonish and Egyptian bondage, and lead them 
back into spiritual freedom and true holiness, so that they 
will be enabled to exhibit, in the restoration of catholic 
unity, that sign from God upon which He has covenanted 
that the world shall believe and be saved. He will tram- 
ple under his feet, or burn in the market-place, as Luther 
burned the pope’s bull, all essentially sectarian creeds and 
symbols, as not conformed to the Lord’s deliverances, and 
as making no due allowances for those differences of opin- 
ion in non-essentials which are inseparable from various 
degrees of intellectual ability, culture and spiritual enlight- 
enment, and which are necessary elements of all healthy 
growth and progress. He will believe in and proclaim 
the gift and indwelling of the Holy Spirit in all true be- 
lievers to guide them into all necessary truths, so that they 
can never be left to go fatally astray, and shall have no 
need of extended formularies, devised and imposed upon 
them by human authority; and surely he will understand 
the essentials of the catholic faith as they were understood 
when the Apostles’ Creed was the only doctrinal symbol 
of the church. 

Finally, we venture to forecast that our coming Luther 
will set us a new example of preaching in the manner of 
Christ in the Gospels, rather than in that of St. Paul in his 
discussions with his countrymen. He will not preach to 
gentiles as if they were Jews, and had Jewish prejudices 
and difficulties to overcome. The staple of his sermons 
will not be the secret purposes of God, but things revealed ; 
not predestination, nor election, nor justification by faith, 


408 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


but the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, the 
efficacy of His most holy sacrifice, the forgiveness of sins, 
reconciliation with God, and salvation by faith. He will 
address his preaching to those spiritual wants which all 
men can feel, rather than to those into which they must 
be laboriously educated before they can feel them. And, so 
preaching, the common people will hear him gladly, as they 
heard the Master when He was on earth in the flesh ; so 
that, the bread of life being offered them as the Lord offered 
it, they will no longer run to the Circean swine-troughs of 
sensationalism; and then the vast multitudes who now 
seem to be hopelessly alienated from the church will re- 
turn to her sacred pale. 


_ = 


XVIII 
CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS 


He that sat upon the throne said: Behold, I make all things new 
.-. And I saw anew heaven and a new earth... The command- 
ment is a lamp, and the law is light... To the law and to the 
testimony : if they speak not according to this word, it is because 
there is no light in them. 


THE most important and most difficult of all the social 
problems seems to be that of the adjustment, in their 
mutual relations, of the progressive and conservative 
forces. Its difficulty arises, in great part, from the vast 
number and complexity of these forces; from their far- 
reaching influence, which extends beyond all human fore- 
sight ; from their apparent, and, in one sense, actual con- 
flict with each other; and from the fact, that they are 
constantly requiring re-adjustment, the reason of which 
will appear in the sequel. Its importance is evident from 
this, that when rigorously analyzed, it is found to include 
nearly or quite all others upon which the progress and wel- 
fare of society, both civil and ecclesiastical, depend. Jor, 
notwithstanding the apparent conflict between these two 
classes of societary forces, all true progress is the resultant 
of their harmonious interaction. If either of them be- 
comes excessive, so as to absorb or neutralize the other, one 
of two disastrous consequences inevitably follows : namely, 
either the precious accumulations which have been pro- 
vided for us by preceding generations are swept away, or 
thought and life fall into stagnation and corruption. On 


the one hand, we cannot afford to throw away any of the 
18 409 


410 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


capital, intellectual, moral, or material, which we have in- 
herited from the labors and struggles of our forefathers, 
for by as much of it as is lost are we the poorer, and our 
future progress is retarded. On the other hand, it is no 
less essential that we should be prompt to relinquish what- 
ever is worthless or cumbersome, to correct the errors of 
tradition and prescription, and cordially to welcome new 
discoveries and new views of truth and duty—everything, 
indeed, which gives reasonable promise of better results 
than have been hitherto attained. For where this is 
wanting, whether from over-estimate of the past, or under- 
estimate of the future, from too much deference to au- 
thority, or undue distrust of reason and science, there the 
human mind loses its vitality and sinks into imbecility—it 
becomes incapable even of utilizing what has been pre- 
viously accumulated. In the presence of the noblest 
monuments of former wisdom and energy, instead of being 
stimulated and quickened, it is stupefied and paralyzed ; 
as the modern Egyptians cannot believe that the pyramids 
were built by their forefathers, nor, indeed, by any human 
power, but regard them as the work of supernatural beings, 
the Genii or Gins of oriental mythology. 

Now, for the solution of this grand problem, we cannot 
surely do better than to take heed to the word of God, who 
presides over the history of the world, and orders all things 
according to the counsel of His own wisdom. Here, if 
anywhere, we must apply to the direction which He has 
given us in the words: “ To the law and to the testimony: 
if they speak not according to this word, it is because there 
is no light in them,” or, literally rendered, “ because there 
is no morning to them,” in which, since morning is the in- 
crease of light, there seems to be an allusion to progressive 
illumination. 

We proceed, therefore, to observe, that the Holy Scrip- 
tures, although containing a fixed and unchangeable rule of 
life, do yet contemplate and make ample provision for 


CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS 411 


human development and progress, both in the church and 
in society at large. In fact, they are a record of marvel- 
lous progress from the sacrifice of Abel to that of the 
Lord Jesus Christ, and from the promise that the ‘Seed of 
the woman should crush the serpent’s head’ to its glorious 
fulfilment on the cross of Calvary, in the resurrection of 
Christ, and in the planting of the first Christian churches 
throughout the Roman empire. Everywhere they glow 
and flame with promise and hope. Even in the midst of 
reaction and declension, when everything in the church 
and in society is enveloped in Egyptian darkness, when 
spiritual life is at its lowest ebb, the Hebrew prophets 
never waver in their predictions of the good times that are 
to come, when “the earth shall be filled with the knowl- 
edge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the 
sea.’ As the darkness thickens around them, their 
prophecies of the future glory pour forth with ever clearer 
light and certainty. Thus their utterances are wonderfully 
distinguished from all merely human compositions. For 
to them is utterly unknown that despair of the future which 
makes the words of Tacitus and Juvenal sound like the wail 
of lost souls. The sense of Scripture from beginning to end 
is, that the future shall be better than the past; and in the 
closing book of the canon the prophecies of millennial glory 
are more full and glowing than any which precede them. 

The provision which the Scriptures make for such as- 
sured progress is ample and manifold. For, in the first 
place, the Son of God, by His incarnation, has taken upon 
himself our nature, has deposited himself in the 
bosom of the human race, and identified himself 
with: its whole subsequent history; and by faith 
man is brought into vital union with Him—a union like 
that between the vine and its branches—-whereby he is 
made partaker of the infinite and exhaustless life of God, 
and thus capable of development and progress, not only as 
an individual, but also as a race, from generation to genera- 


412 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


tion, and from age to age. Secondly, the Scriptures reveal 
the truths of the spiritual world, which are the bread of 
life to the human soul, in forms adapted to all capacities, all 
degrees of receptivity, and all stages of human progress. For, 
generally, and eminently in the words of Christ himself, 
they embody and express the most profound and sublime 
truths in sensuous forms, so that children and babes in 
knowledge can lay hold and feed upon them; and whilst 
they are thus milk for babes, they are inexhaustible as food 
for the most advanced and exalted minds and strongest 
spiritual natures, because they do ever contain an element 
of that which is infinite. Hence it is that they are, in 
general, so free from precise definitions, which, as we have 
seen in a previous study, can be nothing better than limita- 
tions of the illimitable. All this is abundantly exemplified 
in their constant use of images, figures, emblems, parables, 
types and symbols, as, also, in those numerous prophecies 
which contemplate a series or succession of historical events, 
such as those in which the first advent of the Lord is pre- 
dicted, but which do still await their crowning fulfilment 
in His second coming. 

This peculiar character of the Holy Scriptures goes far 
to explain why they have no tendency to become obsolete, 
but possess, for the successive generations of mankind, un- 
fading freshness and inexhaustible power. In this respect, 
they are like the unchangeable principles of morality, so 
admirably characterized by the Greek poet as follows: 
“Sublime laws have been prescribed, which originated 
above the celestial ether, of which Heaven alone is the 
father, nor did any mortal nature of men produce them, 
neither shall oblivion ever put them to sleep; great in 
these is God, and He dves not grow old:* and, again, 


* ... Néwoe mpdxewrat 
‘Ywirodec ovpaviav dv’ ailépa 
Texvwobévrec Ov OAvuTrog 
Larip udvoc, ovdé viv Ovata 


CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS 413 


“They are not anything of to-day and yesterday, but they 
live forever-’* Hence the account which the Word gives us 
of the creation, sin and fall of man has all the significance 
and interest for us now that it ever had. Abraham’s sacri- 
fice of his son is as full of instruction and quickening power 
to the people of. God in these days as it was to the ancient 
patriarchs and prophets. The rock of Horeb, smitten by 
the rod of Moses, and thereupon giving forth its abundant 
‘streams of living water to quench the thirst of the many 
thousands of Israel, has even a deeper and richer meaning 
for us than it had for them. The brazen serpent in the 
wilderness represents more of saving truth to our minds than 
it did to those who were healed by looking upon it of 
the deadly poison in their veins. The prophecies of our 
Lord’s coming are more full of hope to us, when we under- 
stand them aright, than. they were to those who lived be- 
fore His first advent. All true Christians, as they make 
spiritual progress, have abundant experience of this per- 
petual freshness, and of constantly renewed interest, in the 
sacred Scriptures. The more purified and exalted our 
spiritual life becomes, the more do we find in them to 
nourish and perfect it. Truths and views of truth which, 
in the earlier stages of our experience, were dimly seen or 
altogether veiled, blaze out upon their pages, as we ad- 


bicic avépwv Erixev, ovdé 
Mav rote Aaba raraxorpdoes ° 
Méyag év tovtoig Geog 


Ovdé ynpdoxet. 
Soph. Oed. Tyr. 865-871. 


The preposition d’ in the second line, has proved a great puzzle to 
Greek scholars, and some editors have conjecturally emended the text to 
relieve the difficulty. But there is no need of any change, for the 
thought of the poet, more fully expressed, is, that these laws originated 
and came down to men through—i. e, from above—the heavenly ether. 


* Ob yap Te viv Te KaxOéc AAW’ Gei ToTE d 
Zh. 1b. Antig. 454, 


414 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


vance, with overpowering splendor, so that we are often 
amazed that we have never seen them before, or that they 
made so little impression upon our minds. Thus Banyan 
somewhere says: “ ‘The meaning of Scripture often comes 
upon me with such power that I am scarce able to stand 
up under it.” 

In these and other ways, the Holy Scriptures, though in 
themselves unchangeable, make abundant provision for 
human progress, especially in spiritual life and ecclesias- 
tical society, of which they must ever continue to be the 
inexhaustible source, the perpetual norm and law. And, 
hence, if we are ever to have the progressive and con- 
servative forces any better adjusted to each other than 
they are now, of which we cannot doubt, we must draw 
the principles of such re-adjustment more carefully from 
“the law and the testimony,” and give them a more full 
and perfect realization. 

With respect now to the nature of this spiritual prog- 
ress which we are thus led to anticipate, and which, in- 
deed, is contained in the common expectation of the mil- 
lennium, it must needs be conceived of as a great increase 
in the church of both life and light—as a general attain- 
ment of more perfect knowledge of revealed truth, of a 
higher degree of sanctification, and of greater spiritual 
power to overcome and save the world. For all such prog- 
ress in the past has included these elements, and we can- 
not conceive but that it should be so in the future. It is 
true, indeed, as a great poet, though with the common 
misunderstanding of the transaction to which he alludes, 
has said : 


The Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life. 


For life does not always keep pace with light. A man 
may know everything, and yet be nothing: “ Though I 
have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries 
and all knowledge...and have not charity, I am noth- 


CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS 415 


ing...Since ye know these things, happy are ye if ye 
do them.” But the converse of this does not hold good ; 
for though there may be light without life, there cannot 
be life without light, nor any increase of spiritual life 
without a corresponding increase of spiritual light—of 
Divine knowledge—of the knowledge of revealed truth. 
For such increase of light is necessarily contained or im- 
plied in every increase of life, either as its cause or as its 
consequence. Hither we obtain, first, through the study 
of the Word, a deeper insight into its truths—a more pro- 
found, or enlarged, or, in some way, a better knowledge 
of them—by which our spiritual nature is nourished and 
strengthened unto a purer and higher life; or, through 
our vital union with God in Christ, and by the indwelling 
of His Holy Spirit in our souls, we obtain an increase and 
exaltation of spiritual life, whereby our minds are enlight- 
ened unto a better knowledge of revealed truth. Hence, 
in the Word itself, we have these two elements of spiritual 
progress sometimes in one order, and sometimes in the 
other, as in the following quotations : “Search the Scrip- 
tures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life... The 
Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto 
salvation...1n Him was life, and the life was the light 
of men...If any man will do His will, he shall know 
of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak 
of myself.” At other times, the two are identified, as in 
the following: “This is life eternal, that they might know 
thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou 
hast sent.” The truth evidently is, that life and light are 
reciprocal influences, whose natural tendencies are to purify 
and exalt each other. Moreover, of the increase of light 
from life, we have many striking examples in the death- 
bed experiences of God’s dear saints, when the spiritual 
world seems to be opened, in some sort, to their interior 
faculties, as, also, in our own common experience of new 
and more precious views of revealed truth as we draw 


416 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


nearer to God, and become more largely receptive of the 
life of Christ in our souls. 

Here, then, we see how far from the truth they are who 
would persuade us that “ theology is not a progressive 
science,” and that “whatever is true in it is not new, and 
whatever is new is not true.” For by this they do not 
mean that all its facts and truths are contained in the com. 
pleted canon of Scripture, which has now been before the 
mind of the church for almost two thousand years, for 
that is a mere truism which no sound theologian has ever 
disputed. But, if they mean anything, it must be, that 
no new views of revealed truth can be true—that no new 
light can be thrown on the contents of Scripture. This 
must be their meaning, if they have any, which may be 
doubted, for it is absurd, and inconsistent with their own 
professions, inasmuch as some of them, in their voluminous 
writings, claim to have thrown much new light on the 
meaning of Seripture—for what else, indeed, have they 
written? And what is Biblical theology but the science 
of formulating, in some sort of system, the truths of 
Divine revelation, which, of course, must be done by un- 
inspired and fallible men according to the degree of spirit- 
ual light which they may possess; and to say that this 
can never be done any better than it has been in former 
times, is absurd, and a denial of the possibility of prog- 
ress. or since, as we have seen, there can be no increase 
of life without a corresponding increase of light, we can 
never, according to this view, become any better than we 
are now—spiritual progress in life, no less than in light, is 
thus effectually barred. | 

But, now, from the certainty of spiritual progress, ac- 
cepted as a fact both of revelation and experience, it follows, 
by inevitable necessity, that every merely human scheme 
of doctrine, such as our creeds and confessions of faith, 
must be regarded as fallible and defective, and must be 
held subject to revision and correction. For wherever 


CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS 417 


there is any progress at all, it means, as we here see, the 
attainment of more light—a deeper insight into spiritual 
things—more profound, or comprehensive, or, in some 
way, better views of revealed truth; in consequence of 
which, former schemes of doctrine, made and adopted at a 
less advanced stage, are necessarily felt to be inadequate, 
and, to some extent at least, unsuitable, if not positively 
erroneous. How can it be otherwise if they are not, and 
Holy Scripture alone is infallible? Asa single example 
of this, we might compare the Heidelberg catechism with 
the Westminster confession a century later, on the Sabbath 
and on the nature of faith; for, in the former, the essence 
is confounded with the assurance of faith, and we have 
no Sabbath at all, whilst, in the latter, we have the 
distinction between the essence and assurance of faith 
clearly drawn, and the Christian Sabbath is presented in 
its true Scriptural character and obligations Now who 
can estimate the vast practical importance of these differ- 
ences? The progress of spiritual light here indicated is 
simply immense. And what pressing need of revision and 
correction of former statements of doctrine must have been 
felt by the Westminster divines when they undertook their 
great work, which has so powerfully influenced the subse- 
quent history of the church and the world! A similar 
need is felt also in the individual experience of every 
growing Christian. For. if we had undertaken to formu- 
late our doctrinal views at the commencement of our 
Christian life, is it possible that the system which we 
should have formed then would satisfy us now? If so, it 
would prove that we have made little or no progress either 
in thought or life. And here, as elsewhere, individual ex- 
perience represents that of the church at large, of which it 
constitutes the most fundamental element; so that if, after 
a sufficient time, no want is felt in the church of revising 
her former statements, that is sure evidence of her failure 


to make progress—that her thought and life have become 
18* 


418 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


stationary, stagnant, and tending to corruption. For in 
church life, as in that of individuals, where there is no 
progress, there is always backsliding. 

In such a state of stagnation, moreover, there arises an 
almost irresistible temptation to ascribe to the church’s 
former deliverances that unchangeableness and authority 
which belong to the word of God alone, so that, practi- 
cally, if not in theory, they are placed upon a level with 
the Scriptures themselves. It was precisely in this way 
the church of Rome came to arrogate to herself that infal- 
libility which now constitutes one element of her strength 
as an organization, and her greatest weakness as a spiritual 
power. For the claim which she makes to this incommuni- 
cable attribute of God and of His word releases, as we 
have seen in a previous study, her members from the awful 
responsibility of thinking for themselves, and thus satisfies 
a morbid craving which is more or less common to all men. 
Hence her enormous power over the unthinking masses of 
mankind. At the same time, this preposterous claim ren- 
ders it impossible for her to correct the errors of her past 
deliverances, and dooms her, if she will not surrender it, to 
inevitable death and burial, as the light of millennial 
glory dawns upon the world, Thus, also, it was with the 
Old Testament church when, unmindful of the lessons of 
progress of which her Scriptures and her history were full, 
she allowed herself to become so enslaved to tradition that 
she could not raise her eyes to the new light which blazed 
upon her from heaven in the advent of her long-expected 
Messiah. Similar temptations are common to man. All 
the Protestant communions are now threatened with a sim- 
ilar fate, which, therefore, requires to be guarded against 
with sleepless and prayerful vigilance, 

Thus we see that a true and living progress in the church 
cannot fail to manifest itself in a need felt, at least by in- 
dividuals, of revising her former statements of doctrine. 
But this is not to be expected in the received leaders of 


CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS 419 


religious thought, who may chance to occupy the highest 
positions, and to whom it is natural that all things should 
seem to be well enough as they are, and that they them- 
selves should be averse to change. For they are like the 
summits of the high mountains, on which the beams of 
the morning sun are often obscured by the clouds which 
hang around them, whilst the quickening light and heat 
reach many a modest flower in the clefts of the rocks be- 
low, and even penetrate the forest-gloom of the valleys. 
Hence it seems to be a law of reformations that they arise 
from below, as in the cases of Luther and the Lord’s first 
disciples: “For... not many wise men after the flesh, not 
many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God hath 
chosen the foolish things of the world to confound. the 
wise, and... the weak things of the world to confound the 
things that are mighty, and the base things of the world, 
and things which are despised, hath God chosen, and things 
which are not, to bring to nought the things that are.” It 
is true, however, that men may clamor for revision and 
change who have made no progress at all, and who, in 
spiritual light, are so far below the church’s accepted creeds 
that they cannot even understand them; just as the Tal- 
mudists undertook to supplement the deliverances of Mo- 
ses with their oral law, when they had shamefully lost 
the true sense of their inspired Scriptures. Nevertheless, 
whenever there is real progress, there must always be some, 
whether in high or low stations, who truly discern the 
errors or inadequateness of former statements, and who 
deeply feel the need of revision, before this comes to be 
felt by the church at large. How, then, ought such per- 
sons to be treated? Upon this question, which evidently 
is one of fundamental importance, it would appear that the 
most frightful errors now prevail. 

Indeed, the position of those who have made greatest 
progress in any communion or denomination of Christians, 
especially if they are pastors or professors in theological 


420 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


seminaries, is one of great difficulty and embarrassment, 
For in the claim itself to superior light, which all who 
advocate any change are obliged to make, they necessarily 
expose themselves to the charge of presumption, self-con- 
ceit and arrogance, than which, to sensitive minds, nothing 
is more painful to bear. And if, from fear of such charges, 
or from any other motive, they keep silence, to which they 
are mightily tempted, they become conscious of falsehood 
and infidelity to the truth and to the church, Thus they 
fall under condemnation in their own consciences, and 
hence into a state of mental and spiritual paralysis, where 
their light becomes darkness itself. On the other hand, if 
they speak out boidly, and declare in what particulars the 
creed of their denomination appears to them to need cor- 
rection, immediately they hear on all sides such a clamor 
as can hardly fail to blast their influence and usefulness, 
drive them from their pulpits or theological chairs, and 
reduce them to starvation. From all quarters they are 
assailed with the ery: You are violating your covenant 
engagements to hold and teach nothing inconsistent with 
the doctrinal standards of the church to which you belong 
—vows which you solemnly and voluntarily took upon 
your souls at your ordination and induction——vows which 
if you can no longer fulfil, in common honesty you ought 
to withdraw from the church. 

Now this view of the duty of such men, however plau- 
sible it may be, and however irrefutable it may seem to those 
who hold it, gives, as we here maintain, a fatal preponder- 
ance to the conservative, so as to neutralize the progres- 
sive forces in ecclesiastical society. It renders freedom of 
thought, which is its life, in the clergy impossible, and 
hence, also, it is inconsistent with our dearest personal 
rights, and with the true idea of the church of Christ. 
For it assumes that the church is a mere voluntary society, 
from which every man has a right to withdraw whenever 
he pleases. But this is not true, The church is no volun- 


CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS 421 


tary society, but the body of the Lord, whose members 
have no more right to separate themselves from her com- 
munion for any cause whatsoever than a member of the 
human body has to amputate itself. The organism alone 
has authority over its own organs to determine when the 
amputation of any of them may be necessary. In answer 
to this, it is commonly said that he who is not satisfied with 
his church’s creed may join some other church. But this 
is to justify the division of the one church of Christ into 
all those different sects which now exist, and which surely 
ought to be regarded as inconsistent with her spiritual and 
Scriptural unity. Such advice the apostles never give, and 
manifestly could not give, nor can it fairly be drawn from 
any precept or direction in the word of God. On the con- 
trary, when something like these divisions made its appear- 
ance in the church at Corinth, the apostle Paul smote it 
on the head with his sledge-hammer, once for all, in the 
words following: “Every one of you saith, I am of Paul, 
and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ. Is 
Christ divided ? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were ye 
baptized in the name of Paul?” Here we see that these 
sectarian divisions signified to his mind the dividing asun- 
der of the Lord himself. But waiving this for the pres- 
ent, since it will come up again in the sequel, what if the 
poor man to whom such advice is given loves his brethren, 
with whom he has associated all his life, and cannot bear 
the thought of being separated from them ? Nay, what if 
he loves his church, the church of his fathers, in which 
he was born and_ has been brought up, which is his spirit- 
ual mother, with whose mother’s milk he has been nour- 
ished, and upon whose mystic bosom he would account it 
his highest privilege to die—what if he loves and honors 
her above everything but God, and for her prosperity would 
gladly lay down his life? .And what if there be no other 
branch of the church with whose creed he so fully agrees, 
and in whose worship and order he finds anything like the 


422 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


Same power and sweetness and_ spiritual consolation ? 
Ah! it seems plain enough that they who so confidently 
give this advice have no conception of what a cruel and bit- 
ter thing it is, nor, indeed, of true loyalty to the church. 

But this is by no means the worst of the case ; for 
rather than take such advice, a conscientious man may 
prefer to stand a judicial trial for heresy or false doctrine, 
which, if he continues to speak out, he can hardly escape. 
Now when so brought to trial, he is not allowed by the 
common usages of church courts to defend himself by ap- 
pealing from the fallible standards of doctrine adopted by 
his sect to the infallible testimony of the word of God. 
If he attempt to do this, the court will gravely inform him 
that the question on which he is tried is, not what the 
Scriptures teach, but whether he believes and teaches what 
is laid down in his church’s creed or confession of faith. 
This has often been done ; and thus, in such trials, all ap- 
peal ‘to the law and the testimony’ is cut off, and the 
Holy Scripture, by which everything ought to be finally 
determined, is actually ruled out of court. 

Now this whole procedure, we maintain, is utterly in- 
consistent with the most fundamental principle of the Prot- 
estant reformation, and a practical return to the papal 
doctrine of the infallibility of the church. For, practically, 
if not in theory, it sets her statements of doctrine above 
the authority of the Scriptures; in strenuous opposition to 
all which, the principles of the reformation require that 
the direct appeal from all human creeds to the word of 
God should be always in place, and, most of all, in trials 
for heresy and false doctrine. For it was on this ground 
precisely, as all men know, that Luther took his stand in 
his world-famous trial before the diet of Worms, where he 
concluded his defence with the sublime and ever-memorable 
words: “ Let me be confuted and convinced by the testi- 
mony of Scripture. Here I take my stand. TI can do no 
otherwise. God help me.” Thus it was, by the action of 


CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS 423 


this epoch-making man, that the direct appeal from all 
creeds and confessions of faith ever made or adopted by 
the church to the infallible word of God became the most 
fundamental principle of the Protestant reformation, which 
represents nothing so much as the protest of the free 
human soul against the assumed infallibility of church de- 
liverances, the right of private judgment to interpret the 
Scriptures, and the responsibility of the conscience to God 
alone. Hence no church court has, or can have, any au- 
thority to prohibit such appeal—it is an inalienable right 
of the accused—and if he can convince the court before 
which he is tried that his faith and teaching are in accord 
with the Scriptures, it is their duty to acquit and justify 
him, no matter how opposed his doctrines may be to the 
church’s creed or confession, otherwise they forfeit their 
claim to be a court of Jesus Christ. The consequence of 
such an issue of a trial before a court of last resort could 
be nothing worse than that the church would be obliged to 
revise and correct her previous statements in accordance 
with it. 

It is true that many objections may be urged against 
this course, but it seems quite evident that all of them 
taken together, and allowed their utmost force, are not 
worthy to be compared with the measureless evil of deny- 
ing to the accused the inalienable right of appeal to the 
highest and only infallible law, and of thus ruling the 
authority of Christ out of his own courts. Moreover, the 
positive advantages of such appeal would be immense ; 
for it would bring all church judicatories, and through 
them the whole church, into much closer and more vital 
communion with the word of God, which is the one source 
of spiritual light and true progress, and would act as a 
powerful check upon the fatal tendency which has been 
indicated to ascribe a practical infallibility to fallible 
schemes of doctrine. No doubt, also, it would secure, 
with quite as much certainty as the method now in vogue, 


424 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


the conviction of real heretics, and their condemnation 
would be much more efficacious to maintain soundness and 
purity of doctrine. 

In addition to all this, what must be the consequences 
to the church herself of such extrusion, whether by 
judicial process, or by requiring them to withdraw from 
her communion, of all those who come to feel any need of 
revising her former deliverances? What provision for, or 
possibility of progress does she leave herself? What be- 
came of the Roman church when, acting on this principle, 
she cast out Luther and the other reformers from her 
bosom? What has she been, from that day to this, but 
an organization fighting against the progress of society and 
the providence of God? Such, beyond a peradventure, 
must be the fate of every other communion which has no 
place for those great and heroic souls whom God raises up 
from time to time, to whom He imparts superior light, and 
whom He thus calls to lead His people up out of bondage 
to effete traditions into a new and nobler and purer life. 
Every such communion must inevitably perish from the 
suffocating pressure of indurated and obsolete forms of 
thought, and from the practical assumption of infallibility 
the same in substance with that which has already doomed 
the papacy to destruction. 

We find strong confirmation of these views also in the 
fact, that they enable us to comprehend, in some sort, that 
wonderful quickening which the reformation imparted to 
the human mind, and how, through its influence, so many 
men of eminent greatness were raised up. or that there 
were giants in those days, such as, in theology at least, we 
have not now, is generally admitted, nor can it be doubted 
by any who are acquainted with their writings, or with 
what they accomplished. How did this happen? Why, 
it is commonly answered , 1t was manifestly providential— 
God raises up great men for great occasions. But this is 
little more than a truism—it offers us no rational explana- 


CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS 425 


tion of the fact, such as there must be, if we could only 
find it. We submit the following: God, by His provi- 
dence, laid upon the men of those times the awful re- 
sponsibility of thinking and praying themselves out of 
the inadequate and erroneous forms of doctrinal statement 
and belief which had prevailed in the church for a thou- 
sand years, which they had inherited from their forefathers 
with their very existence, in which they had been educated, 
and under which all their faculties had been formed and 
moulded—and upon them He laid the no less awful re- 
sponsibility of providing new statements of doctrine, such 
as should be more Scriptural and more adequate to the in- 
tellectual, moral, and spiritual wants of the incoming 
future. Now, in such strenuous exercise of their faculties, 
under such responsibilities, they attained to independence 
and freedom of thought and action, through which alone 
is the most exalted greatness, whether of intellect or char- 
acter, attainable. For before they could break away from 
the authority of the past, and bring themselves to think 
independently, they must have endured the most agonizing 
mental and spiritual conflicts. We know something of 
what Luther suffered in this way from the records he has 
left us, such as the following extract from one of his letters 
to a still hesitating friend. 


, You must feel yourself awed, he says, in the presence of a 
succession of learned men, and by the consent of so many ages, 
during which flourished scholars so conversant in sacred literature, 
and martyrs illustrious by so many miracles ... On their side are 
ranged learning, genius, numbers, dignity, station, power, sanctity, 
miracles .. . On mine, Wickliffe and Laurentius Valla, and, though 
you forget to mention him, Augustine also. Then comes Luther, 
a man born- yesterday, supported by only a few friends, who have 
neither learning, nor genius, nor greatness, nor sanctity, nor 
miracles. Put them all together, and... what are they?...I 
confess it is with reason you pause in such a presence as this. For 
ten years together I hesitated myself... I call God to witness that 
I should have hesitated until now, if the truth had not compelled 


426 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


me to speak... Oh! what pain it has cost me... to defend my- 
self to my own heart for having dared to resist the pope, and to 
denounce him as Antichrist | What have been the afflictions of 
my bosom! How often, in the bitterness of my soul, have I pressed 
myself with the papist’s argument? Are you alone wise? Are 
all others in error? Have they been in error for so long time? 
What if you yourself are mistaken, and are dragging with you so 
many souls into eternal condemnation? Thus did I reason with 
myself, till Jesus Christ, by His own infallible word, tranquillized 
my heart. 


Such words from this great and heroic soul, if we are 
able to sympathize with him at all by having been con- 
strained to depart in the least from received opinions and 
stereotyped forms of belief, do stir the depths of our 
spiritual and immortal nature. And here we have the secret 
of the reformers’ excellent greatness. It arose from their ven- 
turing to think for themselves—from the exercise of their 
faculties in scrutinizing tradition and rejecting its errors, 
in making over anew all their beliefs, and in drawing their 
faith, not from prescribed systems of theology, creeds, or 
confessions which had been handed down to them from the 
past, but immediately from the word of God. Hence also 
the intellectual greatness of Bacon and Shakespeare, and of 
all that is represented by these venerable names: and the 
reason why we have not such men now is, because it is al- 
most universally held that we have no need to do what they 
did. When it shall come to be generally felt that we have 
a similar need to think and pray ourselves out of the errors 
of tradition, and to draw all our beliefs immediately from 
the infallible Word, we shall once more attain to independ- 
ence and freedom of thought, and equally great minds will 
again make their appearance in the church and in the world. 

But here it will be asked, What changes are required in 
the reformed confessions? Wherein do they fail to set 
forth the truth of God as contained in His word? This 
is altogether a pertinent question, and, as such, it demands 
a frank and direct answer. It should be premised, how- 


CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS 427 


ever, that the notion of uninspired men being able, at any 
time, to formulate the truth of the Scriptures so that their 
work, however excellent, shall never need to be revised 
and corrected, is inconsistent with the law of human prog- 
ress, contrary to all experience, and in itself preposterous. 
We may be certain, therefore, on this @ priori ground, that 
our confessions and creeds, prepared two and three hundred 
years ago, have become more or less inadequate to our 
present necessities, whether we have the superior light to 
discern and specify particulars, or not. But we need not 
confine ourselves to this general statement ; for, if we take 
the Westminster Confession as an example, for which pur- 
pose none could be more suitable, we shall find it easy to 
point out numerous particulars wherein it fails to represent 
the truths of the gospel in their true Scriptural relations. 
Beginning, then, with a few minor particulars, though 
in themselves of no little importance, this great “system 
of doctrine” contains a great deal too much. This will 
more fully appear hereafter. And one of the ways in 
which its bulk might be much and profitably reduced is, 
by excluding all philosophical explanations of its doc- 
trines, such as that which it gives of the way in which 
original sin is transmitted from parents to their children. 
For he who is commonly regarded as one of the greatest 
of modern theologians, the late lamented Dr. Charles 
Hodge, has assured us that these philosophical explana- 
tions are not at all essential to the system; and we our- 
selves have heard him say that, “if we had to make it de 
novo, we would not put so much into it.” Also, the word 
“elect” ought certainly to be left out of the clause, “ Elect 
infants dying in infancy,” because it is a perfectly fair in- 
ference from this word that some infants are not of the 
elect, and, consequently, are predestinated to eternal dam- 
nation—which, probably, was the belief of the Westminster 
divines, and originated their use of the expression; for it 


was held and avowed by Calvin, although he acknowledged 


428 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


that it was “an awful doctrine.” * Hence it is currently 
charged upon those branches of the church who hold to’ 
this confession that they believe in the damnation of in- 
fants, and it is hardly possible to measure the harm which 
they have thus suffered. Again, the declaration that “the 
pope of Rome... is that Antichrist, that man of sin, that 
son of perdition, that exalteth himself in the church 
against Christ and all that is called God,” ought to be 
cancelled ; for it is based upon a very obscure text of 
Scripture, where there is evidently room for difference of 
opinion among the best interpreters, and a confession of 
faith should contain nothing which is subject to any 
reasonable doubt. The pope may be a great part, and not 
necessarily the whole, of that baleful power. Also, the 
statement that “no man is able... by any grace received 
in this life, perfectly to keep the commandments of God,” 
requires to be modified ; for assuredly no limitation should 
ever be laid upon Divine grace, and this ground is suffi- 
ciently covered by the Scriptural declaration, “There is 
none that doeth good, no, not one.” Moreover, to the 
present enumeration of the ordinary means of grace, as 
those of “the Word, Sacraments and Prayer,” there should 
be added that of charity to the poor, and liberality for 
benevolent objects; for it is well understood now that this 
is a Scriptural, and one of the most blessed means of 
grace. The reason why it was not included in the above 
enumeration was, no doubt, because benevolence in money- 
giving was hardly known in the Protestant church in the 
time of the Westminster assembly—missionary and other 
benevolent enterprises were almost or quite unknown. 
Such progress has been made in the life of the church since 
that day. These are only examples of a great number of 
minor changes which might be safely and profitably made. 


* Unde factum est, ut tot gentes,un acum liberis eorum infantibus, eterna 
morte involveret lapsus Ade absque remedio, nisi quia Deo ita visam est? 
... Decretum quidem horribile fateor.—Inst. Cal. III. 23, 7. 


CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS 429 


Of much greater importance, however, is the fact, that 
the confession, as it now stands, makes no reference to 
the missionary and benevolent work of the church. It 
‘contains, indeed, a chapter on missions; but this does not 
at all contemplate the foreign work, which, in the theolo- 
gical strifes of the times, was entirely lost sight of by the 
Protestant communions. Manifestly it requires to be 
amended, so that it shall contain a full authorization of 
the foreign missionary and other benevolent boards—those 
great teleological organs by which the whole life of the 
church is now so powerfully influenced and moulded. It 
seems to be nothing less than a scandal that all these should 
be, to say the least, extra-constitutional. And here we see, 
in the organization of these boards, and in the growth of 
their work, what will more fully appear hereafter, how the 
progress of thought and life does ever transcend prescribed 
constitutional forms, and require that these should be fre- 
quently revised and conformed to it. 

With respect now to matters of doctrine, that of the 
freedom of the human will, in this confession, is entirely 
overshadowed and, indeed, negatived by the disproportion- 
ate development which is given to that of the Divine de- 
erees. Jt is true, we have the following declaration : 
“God hath endowed the will of man with that natural 
liberty that it is neither forced, nor by any absolute neces- 
sity of nature, determined to good or evil.” But, from 
what follows, we see that the practical significance of this 
great truth is intended to be limited to unfallen humanity, 
for it is immediately added : “Man, by his fall into a state 
of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual 
good accompanying salvation.” Thus we see that nothing 
is made of the freedom of the will, except to declare that 
it was lost in the fall. The reason of this is, no doubt, 
that the Westminster divines could not reconcile it in logic 
with the doctrine of the decrees. They did not compre- 
hend what, through the progress of theological knowledge 


430 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


since their day, is now generally admitted, that these are 
two great and co-ordinate truths, each of which rests on 
its own evidence, and neither of which should be made to 
limit the other, whilst the secret of their perfect harmony 
may be known only to God. Hence the vast development 
given to one of them was made, in opposition to human 
consciousness and the general tenor of Scripture, to nega- 
tive the other, although they are of equal importance, and 
should be equally developed and emphasized. For whilst 
the doctrine of the decrees may have greater logical com- 
prehension, it cannot surely have greater practical signifi- 
cance, than the freedom of the will, which includes the 
whole of man’s responsibility to God. 

But, beyond this, in the Westminster and other reformed 
confessions generally, the doctrine of the decrees is made 
the central and governing principle of the whole system. 
All the other doctrines are stated in their logical relations 
to this one, and from it they all take their distinctive forms 
and peculiar coloring ; in fact, they are all made to centre in 
and revolve around it, as the planets around their central sun. 
Now, it may be conceded that logically the doctrine of the 
decrees is the true centre upon which all the others depend; 
but here, as in so many other instances of systematized 
religious thought, the logical and spiritual centres do not 
correspond. For, beyond a question at this day, the true, 
spiritual, vital and practical centre of the whole gospel 
scheme of salvation is the person and work, or mediation, 
of the Lord Jesus Christ. This, therefore, ought to stand 
as the central principle of everything that pretends to be 
a scheme of evangelical doctrine. All the other doctrines 
should be stated in their relations to this one; they should 
be made to centre in and revolve around it, as they do in 
the Scriptures themselves; and this would give to them all 
an entirely different development and coloring, and a vastly 
more vital and practical significance than they have in 
their present relations. 


'CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS 431 


Moreover, every such scheme of evangelical doctrine 
ought certainly to contain a full and clear statement of the 
relation which the sacrifice of Christ bears to all human 
souls, whether of the elect or not, to which it is believed 
that there is not even an allusion in the whole Westminster 
eonfession. “ Who is the Redeemer of God’s elect?” 
The whole scheme of doctrine on this fundamental point 
is developed in answer to that one question. The urgent 
need of such a statement arises from the fact, that all min- 
isters must stand on the ground of this general relation of 
the atonement to mankind-sinners when they preach the 
gospel of “Christ and Him crucified.” For they have 
no message to the elect as such, because they cannot know 
who they are. Hence it is evident that this confession, as 
it now stands, does not provide them with any ground to 
stand upon from which they can tell the people what 
Christ, by His most holy and efficacious sacrifice, has done 
for them, nor for any but the elect, among whom none can 
reckon themselves until they have actually accepted Him 
as their Saviour. Thus, in strictness of logic, the gospel 
message and argument, that which was intended to be 
‘good news to all people,’ is reduced to this: My friends, 
Christ died for some persons, I know not whom; there- 
fore, you all ought to believe and put your trust in Him. 
Is there any convicting force in that sophism? If minis- 
ters should confine themselves within these limits, is it not 
evident that none would ever be saved under their preach- 
ing, except by misunderstanding it? In fact, those who 
swear in the ipsissima verba of the confession are thus 
commonly misunderstood. For they preach: My friends, 
Christ died for us; therefore, we ought to trust in Him 
as our Saviour: and the people, with the Bible in their 
hands, find that this is true of them, whereas it is held by 
the preacher to be true only of the elect. The author does 
not understand himself to differ from the great body of 
his brethren as to what this general relation of the atone- 


432 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


ment is; for there are very few who do not hold that it 
must be such that Christ and His salvation can be freely 
offered to every individual in the words: My friend, Christ 
died for you—and that, without the mental reservation, 
provided you are one of the elect. But, in order to find 
authority for any such offer to individuals, it is undeniable 
that we must go out of the confession directly to the Bible 
itself. 

In fine, this confession, as the organic law of those 
branches of the church which accept it, requires the inser- 
tion of a distinct article providing for its own revision and 
amendment, as the need comes to be felt, and prescribing a 
more facile method of reaching this object than any which 
is now practicable. For in consequence of this defect, the 
Presbyterian church in this country has suffered, for up- 
wards of twenty years, the scandal of four or five hundred 
congregations with rotary elderships, without a shadow of 
constitutional authority, in palpable violation of the law 
on that subject, which still remains unrepealed, and which 
all the church officers are solemnly sworn to observe and 
maintain, And here again we have what is always the 
case with written constitutions which cannot be amended 
with adequate facility, namely, the currents of life and 
thought soon come to flow in other channels, and leave 
their prescribed courses empty and dry—the laws become 
a dead letter, with all the terrible demoralization which 
arises from the constant violation of the official oath to 
observe and maintain them. For no body of fallible men 
can prescribe laws that will govern these providential cur- 
rents of thought and life for any great length of time, 
much less for all future generations. That is the preroga- 
tive of God alone, who foresees the end from the begin- 
ning, and such laws He has given us solely in His word. 
The Westminster divines emphatically disclaim all at- 
tempts to do anything of the kind in the words: “ Al] 
synods and councils since the apostles’ times, whether 


CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS 433 


general or particular, may err and many have erred; there- 
fore, they are not to be made the rule of faith or practice, 
but to be used as a help in both.” How much, then, are 
they misunderstood by those who cannot see that their 
work should ever require correction or revision ! 

But, in any movement which can be made to revise this 
or other reformed confessions, a question of immensely 
greater significance than that of their amendment is sure to 
be raised, namely, whether it will be wise to make any 
renewed attempt to include the whole body of gospel truth 
in a.logical system as the church’s confession of faith ? 
For it is a well-ascertained principle, both in ecclesiastical 
and civil society, that organic or constitutional laws should 
be of a general and comprehensive character; and this 
surely must be the true idea of a creed, or confession of 
faith, to which all officials must give their sworn assent, 
and, as the matter is commonly understood and _ insisted 
upon, must bind themselves by the most solemn obligations 
never to teach nor to believe anything inconsistent with its 
statements. or by taking upon themselves such obliga- 
tions, with respect to any merely human scheme of doctrine, 
men do pledge themselves, as we have seen, against all 
progress in Divine knowledge. If the usual subscription 
to the Westminster confession be strictly taken, it binds 
the subscribers never to make any such progress in advance 
of that to which the church had attained about two hun- 
dred and fifty years ago ; and this, under penalty of being 
regarded and treated as false to their covenant vows, and 
of sacrificing their good standing in the church, their 
temporal support, and all their opportunities and prospects 
of usefulness. 

Thus we see that the evils of such elaborate systems of 
theology, when solemnly adopted and held as confessions 
of faith, must be enormous, especially in their influence 
upon the ministry. For it seems evident that thoughtful and 


conscientious men, with deep convictions of human falli- 
19 | 


434 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


bility, and having before their eyes the wonderful progress 
which is made in science and industry, will shrink more 
and more from incurring such obligations, and from the 
office of the ministry in those communions which require 
it. Hence a constantly increasing difficulty in supplying 
the church with able and faithful preachers and pastors ; 
and what is to be anticipated but that this sacred office will 
come to be occupied more and more by those who will not 
much care what they bind themselves to teach or to believe, 
provided it will give them a piece of bread? Hence, also, 
the candidates for the ministry now, almost universally, 
have to be educated at the expense of the church. This 
was not so formerly because the validity and sufficiency of 
these minute statements of doctrine had hardly begun to be 
questioned—the need of their revision and of re-statement 
had hardly begun to be felt. In those times, the pulpits 
of the church were voluntarily sought and filled by the 
ablest and most eloquent men. How different it is now 
appears from the fact, which is generally admitted, that 
the preaching of the gospel has lost much of its attraction 
and power, especially with the massesof mankind. For what 
mora] power can it have when, as all men know, the preachers 
are not free to think for themselves, or otherwise than as 
fallible men like themselves thought centuries ago—so 
lightly prizing their freedom of thought that they do not 
hesitate to bind themselves by solemn covenant obligations 
never to advance in Divine knowledge beyond what has 
been already attained? Hence, moreover, it has come to 
pass that intelligent lay people, who are not under such 
stringent vows, but who are more or less free to think, are 
often far in advance of their ministers on the lines of re- 
ligious thought. As a single example of this, the late re- 
union between the two great branches of the Presbyterian 
church in this country was brought about, as is well known, 
by lay pressure upon the ministers, from whom proceeded 
all the opposition which it encountered and overcame. 


CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS 435 


Another evil of these systems of theology held as con- 
fessions of faith is, that they constitute the great barriers 
and bulwarks which now separate the Lord’s people into 
different denominations or sects, and prevent them from re- 
turning to that primitive unity of the church which, beyond 
dispute, was one of her most precious possessions as she 
came from the hands of the apostles. This makes it ne- 
cessary that we should consider here the enormous evils of 
this state of division, or schism, which are such as the 
following : 

1. Our modern sectarianism causes a frightful waste of 
the means, both material and moral, which God has en- 
trusted to the church for the evangelization and salvation 
of the world. For it renders necessary a large number of 
missionary and benevolent boards, with their salaried 
officials and expensive accommodations, also, many different 
missionary establishments among the heathen, where 
much fewer would transact the same business, cover the 
same ground, and be far more efficient ; and, perhaps, the 
greatest hindrance to the conversion of the heathen, at 
the present time, is the knowledge which they have thus 
gained that the church at home is divided into different 
sects which are more or less in conflict with each other. 
But the greatness of this waste is not so obvious in cities 
or large towns, where there is abundant room for a number 
of congregations, as it is in villages and country localities. 
For in every village of a thousand or fifteen hundred in- 
habitants—and such places are immensely numerous— 
where there is room for only one good church, and where 
no more can be well supported, there must now be five or 
six—Presbyterian, Episcopal, Methodist, Baptist, Congre- 
gational, and often theré are several others—with their 
separate church buildings and accommodations. Now the 
expense of all these different organizations cannot be less 
than four or five times as great as would be required by 
one, which, also, in every other way, would be better for 


436 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


the people and the cause. Here likewise the services of 
five or six ministers are required, where the work could be 
better done by one; in consequence of which, four or five 
other places, where there is an outcrying need for the 
preaching of the gospel, must be left destitute. Such is 
this waste, probably, in money alone, of more than is con- 
tributed by the whole church for all missionary and other 
benevolent objects. How can it be justified—how can it 
be in any way excusable—in the sight of God? 

2. Also, our sectarianism enfeebles the preaching of the 
gospel, and dwarfs the faith and character of Christians. 
For, in the first place, the preachers in large numbers, are 
nearly starved, and, hence, in addition to the cause pre- 
viously assigned, an inferior class of men are brought into 
the ministry. Fora salary of four or five hundred dollars 
offers as strong an inducement to men of an inferior grade 
of ability and character as one of four or five thousand 
does to men of a superior grade. Secondly, the preachers, 
in order to confirm themselves and their people in adhering 
to their own particular sect, rather than to any other, are 
naturally led to develop and emphasize in their preaching 
those non-essentials in which the sects differ from each 
other, in place of those great essential and soul-saying 
truths in which they all agree; and it is these latter truths 
which convert sinners, and build up and perfect Christian 
character. Thirdly, each of the sects represents, most pro- 
minently at least, only one section or phase of the catholic 
faith—in some cases, hardly so much—whereas, in order to 
make whole Christians, it is indispensable that the whole of 
catholic truth should be set forth and dispensed in each 
particular congregation. For this reason, the Christian 
character. Thirdly, each of the sects represents, most prom- 
inently at least, only one section or phase of the catholic 
sectarian doctrine preached in the name of the Lord, 
can not help thinking that they could go across the street 
and hear a different and often a contrary one presented in 


CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS 437 


the same holy name with equal earnestness and ability ; 
and thus their faith in what they hear from the pulpit is 
confused and enfeebled. Nor is this the worst of the case; 
for they naturally become so anxiously occupied in the 
difficult work of supporting their several organizations, in 
competition with each other, that they rush, with indecent 
haste, to secure every new family coming to reside in the 
place, and spare no efforts to make proselytes from rival 
congregations. Thus the sentiment of brotherly love, which 
is the Lord’s own badge of discipleship, by which all men 
are to know who his true people are, perishes out of their 
hearts ; and they, instead of living as the inoffensive sheep 
of the Good Shepherd, hecome like wolves which, in ex- 
treme hunger, prey upon each other. ‘There is not the 
least exaggeration in all this, as is well known to all who 
have observed the workings of sectarianism in small com- 
munities,* , 

3. These divisions render it impossible for the church 
to hold up that sign of catholic unity, and of Christian 
character thereby perfected, upon which, being given, the 
Lord has covenanted that the world shall believe and be 
saved. Jor thisis plainly the sense of that last prayer 
which He offered with and for His disciples before He 
suffered : “That they all may be one—as thou, Father, 
art in me, and I in thee, that they may be one in us—that 
the world may believe that thou hast sent me... That 


* Sometime after the above was written the following paragraph appeared 
inthe New York Tribune of Jan. 15, 1883: 

There is a town in Iowa which has a population of 1300, and twelve dis- 
tinct and separate church organizations, which a local paper says are not 
busy converting outsiders, but in trying to kill off each other. Life is made 
miserable to the unfortunate stranger who comes to that town. He is 
pounced upon by the emissaries of these organizations, and if he should be 
weak enough to yield to the blandishments of one, he is promptly ostra- 
cized by all the others. The aforesaid local paper seriously states that 
the business of the town is very much injured by this state of affairs. It 
would seem that if there was more religion and a little less church, it 
would be better all around, 


438 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


they may be made perfect in one, that the world may know 
that thou hast sent me.” Instead of this, ‘the church, 
which is the body of Christ, exists among us now ina 
dismembered state, its mangled limbs, torn from each 
other, and its life-blood, which is faith, pouring from its 
wounds in fatal streams. How, indeed, can it be other- 
wise than that the spiritual unity of the church, which is 
constituted by the indwelling in all her members of one 
and the same Spirit, should be marred, if not destroyed, 
by such a multitude of differing, and, to a certain extent, 
conflicting sects? Besides, this inward and spiritual unity 
must needs require an outward and visible sign, in order, first, 
that it should possess vitality, and, secondly, that it should be 
so manifested as to beget faith in the world that Christ is 
the Sent of God. For how can the people of the world, 
who are not able to discern spiritual things, be convinced 
that there is any such unity in the church, otherwise than 
by its going forth and manifesting itself externally to their 
senses? Thus understanding the above-cited words of the 
Lord, we see that it is for want of this sign that the world 
is not converted ; and this is confirmed by the unparalleled 
success of the gospel in primitive times, before these sectarian 
divisions were known, and when the sin of schism, of 
which we seem to have lost all sense, was classed with re- 
bellion, adultery and murder. 

4, In fine, it has resulted from these sectarian divisions 
that effectual discipline for the maintenance of purity in 
the church is no longer possible. For whilst church cen- 
sures in one sect have no validity or force in any of the 
others, suspension from ordinances, and even excommuni- 
cation, cannot have much significance. Hence the barriers 
which the word of God sets up between the church and 
the world are broken down; one public opinion as to 
things lawful and unlawful—a common morality—governs 
both; and because the two are so nearly on a level, there 
is but little flow from one to the other. Here, also, 


CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS 439 


we have one reason why conversions are, comparatively, so 
much more numerous on the mission fields among the 
heathen than in the church at home. 

Now, from these enormous evils the church of the first 
ages guarded herself by maintaining her catholic unity, 
and this, by limiting her creed to the fundamentals and es- 
sentials of Christian doctrine. For previous to the council 
of Nice in the fourth century, she certainly had no more 
extended or particular doctrinal symbol than that which, 
for reasons which we must here endeavor to elucidate, has 
commonly been called “ the Apostles’ Creed.” 

We observe, then, that there are certain facts and his- 
torical statements concerning this ancient and venerable 
symbol for which we are obliged to render some rational - 
account. The first of these is its extreme brevity ; for it 
contains, at most, only sixteen specifications, which are so 
well known that they need not be reproduced here. The 
second is its indefiniteness, or freedom from precise defini- 
tions of doctrine. For it sets forth the fundamentals of 
the Christian faith concretely, even vaguely, in the form, 
“T believe in” the facts and truths thus indefinitely stated, 
and not in the form, I believe that these things are 
precisely thus and so: “I believe in the communion of 
saints.” The third is, that it appears in all the earliest 
Christian authors as the same in substance, though in 
slightly variant forms—the variations being, for the most 
part, unimportant, with the marked exception, that the 
Lord’s descent into Hades does not appear in it until some- 
time in the sixth century. The fourth is, that, about 
the close of the third century, it settled in the form in 
which we now have it, with the above exception. The 
fifth and last of these facts is, that the creed, from the 
earliest date, was ascribed to the apostles. Thus Ru- 
finus, a voluminous and learned author of the fourth 
century, in his Explanation of the Apostles’ Creed, writes 
as follows; “The apostles of the Lord, when about to 


440 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


separate to carry the gospel throughout the world, being 
met together, and filled with the Holy Ghost, composed 
this compend of what they were to preach, each one con- 
tributing his share to the composition, which they resolyed 
to give as arule of faith to those who should believe.” 
This undoubtedly expresses the general belief of his times, 
and how much of it rests on ground which will bear 
modern criticism we shall soon see. Tertullian, also, a 
brilliant and powerful writer, at the close of the second 
century, recites the most important particulars of the 
creed, and states that it “is the one only rule of faith, 
which admits of no change or alteration, and which has 
prevailed in the church from the beginning of the gospel.” 
But the earliest mention of this symbol is in the latter half 
of the second century by Irenzeus, who was instructed by 
the illustrious martyr Polycarp, pastor of the church in 
Smyrna,who himself was a disciple of the apostle John. His 
words are as follows: ‘The church, though it be dispersed 
over all the world, from one end of the earth to the other, 
has received from the apostles and their disciples the be- 
lief in one God, the Father Almighty ”—and so he pro- 
ceeds to recite the most important particulars of the creed 
as we now have it. These are the facts of which we haye 
now to render a rational account. 

In the first place, then, it is sufficiently evident that, 
whilst the apostles lived and governed the church, the 
doctrinal and other differences which arose among’ their 
converts would be submitted to them, as the inspired and 
Divinely authorized teachers and expounders of the Chris- 
tian faith, and that their definitive sentences would be 
received by all good Christians as authoritative and final. 
We have an example of such a reference and decision in 
the Acts of the Apostles, in the first council, which was 
called at Jerusalem, to determine differences of opinion 
with respect to the obligation and observance of the Mosaic 
law, which had arisen in the church at Antioch on the 


CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS 44] 


Orontes, and which agitated many other Christian com- 
munities. But after the apostles had departed out of this 
life, similar differences of opinion must have continued to 
arise, as we know on historical evidence that they did ; for 
they belong to human nature, and are inseparable from 
the different degrees of natural ability, culture and spirit- 
ual enlightenment by which men are necessarily distin- 
guished, and in consequence of which they cannot help 
seeing the same things in various lights, and from different 
points of view. ‘To eradicate these differences, therefore, 
is impossible; and if it could be accomplished, that, no 
doubt, would be fatal to human progress, which is always 
the resultant of interaction between diverse forces. Unity 
in diversity, not uniformity, is the true Scriptural law of 
spiritual, as it is of all organic life, and upon it depends 
the highest perfection of being. God himself is a Trinity 
of different personalities in the unity of one substance. 
Absolute and changeless uniformity is death. Conse- 
quently, when the authority of the apostles could no 
longer be appealed to, there must have arisen in all the 
churches which they founded a question as to the limits 
within which these differences of opinion could, and be- 
yond which they could not be tolerated, without detriment 
to the unity and integrity of the faith and of the church. 
But that question necessarily involved another, namely, 
what were the fundamentals and essentials of Christian 
doctrine? For self-evidently fundamental differences 
could not, whilst others might, and ought to be allowed, 
not only in the church catholic, but also in each particular 
congregation. How was this latter question to be solved ? 
There was but one way for all the churches, and this was 
so obvious that none of them could possibly miss it. or 
they could not fail to ask among themselves, what were 
the doctrinal terms of communion prescribed to us by our 
apostle who founded our church, and upon confession of 
which he received us to baptism and church-membership ? 
* 


442 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


For he must have known what were the essentials of the 
Christian faith, and the belief of these he must have re- 
quired of us when he admitted us into the church. ‘Then, 
as they remembered these apostolic statements of the fun- 
damental doctrines, they threw them together, or sym- 
bolized them—for that is the meaning of the word—in a 
form of confession, which became the creed of that church. 
Having now solved this question by apostolic authority, 
they could find no difficulty in the previous one. For 
their apostle must have tolerated all differences which 
were not inconsistent with his own doctrinal terms of com- 
munion; and what better could they hope to do than to 
follow his example? Thus we see, beyond all reasonable 
doubt, how it came to pass that, about the close of the 
first century, a creed substantially the same was formed 
and established in every particular church throughout the 
Christian world ; as, also, on what unimpeachable grounds 
it was universally called “the Apostles’ Creed,” as having 
virtually, if not in form, the sanction of their authority. 
This creed, however, having originated in this way, 
could not be at first precisely the same in all the churches ; 
there would be, as we know that there were, unimportant 
variations. Jor, in the first place, the apostles themselves, 
though, or rather because they were plenarily inspired, 
wisely adapted themselves to circumstances, and can hardly 
be supposed to have prescribed their terms of communion 
everywhere in precisely the same form of words. St. 
Paul, in founding different churches, may have embodied 
and expressed the fundamental truths of the gospel in 
different expressions, as he does in his epistles; whilst St. 
Peter and St. John can hardly be supposed to have em- 
ployed the same as those of St. Paul, or of each other— 
the characters of the men and their extant writings render 
this altogether improbable. Secondly, the terms actually 
employed by the apostles would not naturally be remem- 
bered in all the churches precisely alike, or with equal 


CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS 443 


accuracy. From these and perhaps other causes, some 
unimportant variations in the creed, such as those which it 
manifested, were inevitable. But as soon as they began 
to be noticed, a general comparison of the various forms 
in the several churches would naturally follow, whereby 
the differences would be, as they finally were, eliminated. 
Thus it was, in all probability, that, with the exception of 
the descent into Hades, which cannot be ascribed to the 
apostles, the creed settled in its present form. 

Its brevity and indefiniteness are the only facts which 
remain to be rationally accounted for ; and it would seem 
that these are not the least convincing proofs of its apostolic 
origin, in the sense which has been explained. For, as to 
its brevity, it is enough to say, that it contains all the 
fundamentals and essentials of the Christian faith, as 
understood by the apostles, and evinces that, in their idea 
of a church-creed, to these it should be limited. For they 
knew better than any since have ever known that, in all 
non-essentials, where there was room for true Christians to 
differ, they ought to be left free to differ ; that such differ- 
ences were no just cause for separation or schism; that 
they were essential to human development and progress ; 
and that all creeds and confessions which should prohibit 
them would be inconsistent with the liberty of the children 
of God. And as to its indefiniteness, or freedom from 
precise definitions of doctrine, in this respect it conforms to 
the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ more perfectly than 
any other document ever did. For He knew, and His 
inspired apostles knew, what was entirely lost sight of in 
subsequent ages, and has not yet been recovered by. the 
church, that precise definitions of spiritual things were 
limitations of the illimitable, and that these things must 
appear very differently to persons in different degrees of 
spiritual enlightenment and otherwise distinguished from 
each other. It is in view of such necessary differences 
that the Apostles’ Creed presents the great facts and truths 


444 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


of the Christian religion without such limitations, in order 
that every one may see in them as much as he brings 
capacity for seeing ; that, however much he may grow, he 
may never outgrow it; and that it may be, as it is, no less 
milk for babes than food for the strongest and most 
developed spiritual natures. For the correction of all 
minor errors, such as did not involve a denial of any of 
these facts as truths, as thus concretely stated, the apostles 
and the church as they left it, relied, not upon creeds nor 
confessions, but upon faithful pastoral instruction and 
admonition, upon the communion of the saints with each 
other, upon the development and increase of light and life 
in the individual soul—above all, upon the Lord’s promise 
and gift of His Holy Spirit to guide His people into all 
truth, so that none of them should ever be left to go 
fatally astray. 

In such considerations a3 these—of the necessary brevity 
of constitutional and organic laws, of the evils of our present 
sectarianism, as inseparable from the great bulk and extent 
of the reformed confessions, of their many defects, as 
brought to light by the progress of the last three hundred 
years—we find all-sufficient reasons for a thorough revision 
of these antiquated documents, and for limiting them to 
something like the brevity and simplicity of the Apostles’ 
Creed. Indeed, when we consider how all the above evils 
were guarded against by the apostles themselves, and by 
the church of the first ages, it seems as if we could not do 
better than to return to this only creed for which apostolic 
authority can be claimed, in which all Christians through- 
out the whole world are still fully agreed, and with which 
inscribed upon her banners the apostolic church fought 
and conquered in the great battle of the ages, when the 
ancient towers and mighty bulwarks of paganism went 
down in flaming ruins before the unity and strength of her 
faith and the quenchless fervor of her zeal. 

The only objection to all this which we ever hear is, that 


CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS 445 


errors are now so rife that we have greater need of extended 
exhibitions and precise definitions of doctrine than the first 
Christians had. The objection has not a particle of force, 
for no one acquainted with church history can deny, that 
there were as many and as dangerous heresies then as there 
are now; and it is doubtful whether we have a single one 
which was then unknown. Even those of modern physi- 
cal science and speculation, which seem now to give most 
disturbance, are all found in the philosophical poem of 
Lucretius on The Nature of Things. And when it was 
attempted to suppress theological error by departing from 
the method of the apostles, and adopting more rigorous 
definitions, as in the Council of Nice, in the fourth cen- 
tury, the attempt proved unsuccessful ; for in spite of the 
Nicene creed, Arianism, against which it was formulated, 
continued to flourish for centuries, and became, at one time, 
the most general belief in the Christian world. It perished 
at last, not by the force of creeds or confessions, but from 
its own essential falsity, and because the truth is great and 
must ultimately prevail. 

The author has now indicated the principal reasons for 
which he, as one of the least of the sacramental host, has 
long felt a pressing need for a revision of the doctrinal 
standards of his own, and of the other branches of the re- 
formed church ; and it is a great relief to him thus to open 
his heart to his brethren in the Lord. For he has been 
- much misrepresented or misunderstood, and has long de- 
sired to explain the meaning of his own acceptance of the 
Westminster confession, “as containing the system of doc- 
trine taught in the Holy Scriptures.” In personal expla- 
nation, then, he takes the words, “system of doctrine,” in 
the sense of body of doctrine; and he can truly declare 
that there is hardly a statement in the whole book, and 
certainly none of any great importance, which, taken by 
itself, he does not cordially receive. But the logical con- 
nections in which these statements stand, which have been 


446 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


supplied by men fallible like himself, are no part of his 
faith ; and, in fact, he believes a great deal more than is 
even hinted at in the book. As for saying that it contains 
the best scheme of doctrine which could be drawn from 
the word of God—one that can have no need of revision 
as the church makes progress towards the millennial glory 
—this he has never meant to say, and this, with respect to 
any merely human scheme of doctrine, he never will say, 
so help him God in his utmost need ! 

But all personal considerations sink into insignificance 
compared with the bearings of this great question upon the 
prosperity and life of the church. For if there is to be 
progress, there must be change; and progress there will 
be, as there always has been—we have seen that it is the 
grand prophecy of the Scriptures. Change, then, will 
surely come, and all the more violently, the more it is 
resisted where it ought to be welcomed. There are worse 
things than change, and one of them is death, to which no 
change comes. Whilst, therefore, we hold fast, with the 
wisdom of reverence, to everything good which we have 
inherited from preceding generations, let us not cling to 
their errors and imperfections, nor reject the infinitely bet- 
fer things which the great future has in store for us. If 
our forefathers had committed this inexcusable blunder, we 
should have inherited from them nothing of any value; and 
even the priceless, legacy of the reformation would have 
been lost to the church and the world. 


XIX 
RELIGION AND POLITICS 


The kingdoms of the world are become the kingdom of our 
Lord and of His Christ... Upon His head are many crowns... 
And He hath on His vesture and on His thigh a name written, 
King of Kings, and Lord of lords...Be wise now, therefore, O 
ye kings; be instructed, ye judges of the earth: kiss the Son, lest 
He be angry, and ye perish from the way, when His wrath is 
kindled but a little. 


WE have seen, in a previous study, that progress is a 
fundamental law of human society. Indeed, the faith and 
hope of it are interwoven with the very fibres of parental 
affection. or we easily persuade ourselves that our chil- 
dren will come to honor, and that we shall be comforted 
for our own errors and failures by their better success in 
life ; as in the case of a certain father, who'called his son 
into his presence on the day he came of age, and said: 
“My son, you are no longer a child, you are now a man, 
and, from this day, you will have no master but God. 
God and your country now call you to liberty and to duty. 
I wish you to remember, my son, that it has ever been the 
aim of your father to be a man, and to act a man’s part 
in life. His honor is now committed to your hands: you 
will not betray nor tarnish it.” To the young man that 
was all he said, but, as he turned away, he softly added: 
“Tt is an honest lad, he will not discredit his name, he 
will do better than his father has done.” 

Here, now, we have the indestructible germ of faith and 
hope for that physical, mental and moral development and 
progress of the human race of which all history, when 
rightly understood, is the crowning proof. It is true, in- 

447 


448 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


deed, as every thinking man must be well aware, that 
much of that which is called by the name of progress is 
mis-called. If the destinies of mankind were in the 
hands of many who vociferate this word, but who are 
only camp-followers to the army, intent on plunder, no 
real victory could ever be achieved, but organized society 
would soon be dissolved, and the world engulfed in per- 
dition. Notwithstanding, from the times of the old 
Hebrew seers, in whose sublime utterances it found its 
first and most assured’ predictions, progress has ever been 
the faith of all great and good men. It is, in fact, the 
light of human life, without which life itself would be 
intolerable. We cannot believe in a permanently retro- 
grade movement. ‘The deep and fervent aspirations of 
our hearts, and the faithful labors of our hands, are not 
doomed to unfruitfulness and final disappointment. Suc- 
ceeding generations do enter into the labors, and profit by 
the experience of those which have preceded them. Hu- 
man reason is a nobler endowment than the instinct of the 
beaver. 

A little attention, however, to the phenomena of his- 
torical development reveals the striking fact, that this 
progress is hardly ever in a direct line, but mostly in a 
zig-zag movement, like that of a ship beating to wind- 
ward. Thus, from the experience of the practical evils 
resulting from any accepted social philosophy, or prevail- 
ing solution of the great problems of life, human thought 
reacts, and shoots far over into the opposite extreme. 
When the evils of this extreme have made themselves 
generally felt, and others still more grievous are threaten- 
ing, a similar reaction sets in, and again the word is passed, 
Breakers ahead, about ship, helm hard down! Then we 
come up into the wind, and, if we do not miss stays, and 
fall off on rocks or quicksands, we go about, and lie over 
on the other tack. But, head as close to the wind as we 
can, we soon find ourselves, not, indeed, in the same, but 


RELIGION AND POLITICS AAQ 


in a similar extreme to the former one. In the meantime, 
a certain progress has been made, yet by no means so great 
as he imagines who looks only at the motion of the vessel 
through the water, but does not lift his eyes to the guiding 
constellations of heaven. 

Sometimes, when the wind is dead ahead, and the chan- 
nel is narrow, as the case has been in France for the last 
two hundred years, these oblique courses are very short. 
For, in that country we have under Louis XIV the 
apotheosis of despotism, then the evils of that extreme, 
the subsequent reaction, and the subversion of that an- 
cient and renowned monarchy. Following upon this, we 
have the opposite extreme of Jacobinism, the reign of 
terror, a similar reaction against its intolerable evils, and 
the consequent overthrow of the first republic. Next 

comes the military throne of the first Napoleon, together 
with the sorrows of France depopulated by his incessant 
wars, and of Paris occupied by the allied armies, then the 
banishment of the emperor, and the restoration of the 
ancient dynasty, with most of its obsolete traditions. 
Hence another reaction towards republicanism, the second 
expulsion of the Bourbons, the reign of the citizen king, 
his flight, and the second republic; against which, again, 
reaction set in, not so much, as it would seem, from any 
extremes actually reached, or evils actually experienced, as 
from those which were apprehended as impending and in- 
evitable. For,during the brief period of the second repub- 
lic, the socialistic ideas had made such rapid advances as to 
threaten the rights of property, the integrity of the nation, 
and civilization itself. This was well understood at the 
time by the leading minds in France. Hence Cavaignac 
himself, that staunch and incorruptible republican, is known 
to have declared that, although he would not forfeit his own 
consistency, yet, if Louis Napoleon, or any other capable 
man, should put himself at the head of a reactionary move- 
ment, he, Cavaignac, would not draw his sword in defence 


450 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


of republican ideas; for he could not disguise from him- 
self that a change was necessary in order to save society. 
This was the secret of that great man’s virtual acquies- 
cence, so inexplicable to many, in the coup d’ état which 
established the second empire. But this could not last, for 
its enormous and shameless corruptions, which led to the 
Franco-Prussian war, with all its disastrous consequences, 
caused an overwhelming reaction, which resulted in its 
overthrow, and in the establishment of the present third 
republic; under which, the socialistic and radical deeps 
even now are heaving with muttered thunder, and threat- 
ening its destruction, so that the restoration of a more con- 
servative government may again become necessary. But, 
now, if we compare society under this third republic with 
that under the first Napoleon, and, still farther back, with 
that under the old monarchy, it will be quite evident that 
the resultant of all these actions and reactions has been a 
true and living progress. 

We find the most sharply defined and typical form of 
this whole procedure in France, because one of the most 
striking traits of Frenchmen is that they are idealistic and 
logical ; they abound in ideas, and they develop and apply 
their social and political theories, as if they were absolute, 
even to the most extreme results of which they are capable. 
Your true Gaul ‘follows his logic down Niagara.’ Hence 
the rapidity with which he runs through these historic 
periods, and the frequency, strength and violence of his 
reactionary movements. Yet such, in all essential ele- 
ments, has been the history of mankind. For if it be 
objected, as we sometimes hear it, that French nature is 
not human nature, and such things are seen only in France, 
we are not to attribute the least significance to this, or simi- 
lar strokes of wit, for their wit is all that gives them cur- 
rency. Human nature is everywhere one and the same 
thing ; and we meet similar phenomena in Greek, Roman, 
and, as we shall see hereafter, even in Jewish history. In 


v 


RELIGION AND POLITICS 451 


fact, through all past time, wherever any life or movement 
has been manifested, this progress by action and reaction 
has been going on in more or less striking forms, with 
longer or shorter reaches of thought, according to the cir- 
cumstances and peculiarities of the several peoples and 
varieties of the human species. 

The reason of it is not far to seek. For the life of 
man consists, for the most part, in the development under 
logical forms, and in the external realization, of intel- 
lectual conceptions, ideas, principles: ‘ideas govern the 
world.’ Facts, history, res geste, are the phenomena and 
the body of which thought is the soul and the law. 
‘ History is crystallized thought.’ Not that such ideas or 
principles are first apprehended by the mind; on the con- 
trary, facts are first in the field. Some leader of men be- 


_ comes deeply conscious of a common want, and thereupon 


immediately takes action to supply it. In order now to 
justify such action, and to induce others to share with him 
in its responsibility and benefits, reflection is brought to 
bear upon it, and the principle which it contains is ab- 
stracted and defined. This principle now enters into a 
course of logical development ; its contents are evolved out 
of it, and applied in various directions according to cir- 
cumstances. Thus it passes into history. In so far as 
any such idea is both true and fruitful, the people in whose 
history it is realized are animated by a vigorous and 
flourishing life. The time during which it continues to 
supply impulse and energy, norm and corrective, to their 
activities, is marked as one of their historic periods ; and 
such periods are of longer or shorter duration, and more 
or less rich in important events, according to the pecu- 
liarities of the people, and to the truth and fruitfulness of 
the ideas by which they are inspired and governed. 

Thus all great events in the world are the movements of 
thought in evolution and application or realization. And 
wonderful it is to see with what rigorous logical procedure 


452 WISDOM OF HOLY SCIPRTURE 


such developments march. For, although each individual 
may be capable of but little thought, and that little may 
often wander and load itself with inconsequences, yet, as 
in orchestral music, the discords of unskilful performers 
become assimilated, and absorbed in the full tide of pre- 
vailing harmony, so, in these great movements of history, 
the errors in reasoning of individual minds are neutralized 
by each other, or they are taken up and borne along in the 
vast sweep and volume of national thought, which conse- 
quently follows, in the main, a logical development. 

But, in order more fully to comprehend why such move- 
ments cannot run on in the same direction forever, we 
must here take into consideration, that the truth is infinite, 
and the capacities of the human mind are finite. In con- 
sequence of this, the ideas which are developed in history 
can never be absolute. In so far even as they are true, 
they are but glimpses into the infinite, and are liable to be- 
come exhausted of their contents, so that, torture them as 
we may, they will yield no more consequences which are 
capable of being realized ; in which case, they cease to in- 
spire the life and energies of the people, and naturally give 
place to other ideas, which turn the current of history. 
Besides, no one idea, however great and fruitful, can be 
adequate at any time to fill out the whole circumference of 
human life, which is manifold and many-sided. The life 
of each individual, much more that of a whole people, con- 
sists in the development and realization of many ideas, 
which have complex relations with each other, are often in 
conflict, and yield consequences which never can be fore- 
seen. It is only through actual development in life that 
the contents of any great. historical principle ever come to 
be fully known. Hence, when such principles continue to 
be fruitful for a long time, they are liable to be pushed on 
to applications which not only clash with each other, but 
are also pernicious in themselves, For there is no prin- 
ciple capable of development and realization which will 


RELIGION AND POLITICS 453 


not yield, by perfectly legitimate processes, extreme results 
which sound practical wisdom will steadfastly refuse to 
adopt and apply. Every such principle, however incon- 
trovertible it may be when abstractly stated, and however 
beneficial most of its legitimate consequences may be, is 
necessarily dependent, to a great extent, upon circum- 
stances, and hence, in application, it often requires to be 
severely limited. 

Now, where this is ill understood or neglected—where 
the people do not stop to apply these necessary limitations, 
but push on the great ideas which inspire and give direc- 
tion to their energies to extreme consequences, these become 
productive of intolerable evils, when reaction is sure to set 
in against them, the ship goes about, and lies over on the 
other tack. And, as we have found the most striking in- 
_ stances of this procedure in French history, so the English, 
above all whom we know, whether in ancient or modern 
‘times, seem to have the power of limiting ideas, and of 
arresting their extreme consequences. For they are not a 
people devoted to theories. The most remarkable trait of 
their national mind is common sense. They understand 
the necessity of checks and balances in every human ar- 
rangement. Hence those long reaches through which their 
historic periods run, and the permanency of their political 
and social institutions. Hence, also, that maxim of prac- 
tical wisdom, which is.doubtless of English origin: ‘It 
may be very good in theory, but it will not hold in prac- 
tice” and which, however ridiculed by sciolists, is both 
sound in itself, and of extensive application. For, as we 
here see, the wisdom and safety of any act or course of 
action does not wholly rest upon its being a legitimate 
consequence of any received, and, in the main, sound prin- 
ciple; but, in order to a safe practical judgment, each 
separate result of our guiding principles must be brought 
to the test of other ideas which may have a bearing upon 
it, as, also, to that of experience and common sense. 


454 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


In the light of these principles and laws of human de- 
velopment, we may endeavor, in considering THE RELA- 
TIONS BETWEEN RELIGION AND POLITICS UNDER AMERI- 
CAN INSTITUTIONS, to determine through what stage, whether 
of healthful progress, or of extreme results, we are now 
moving in the realization of the grand ideas which inspire 
and govern our life, 

But, here, it is necessary to ascend to the fountain-head 
of all that can properly be called modern history. For 
the great historic period through which civilized society is 
now passing began, in so far as that which necessarily be- 
longs to the organic whole of universal history can be said 
to have had a beginning, with the reformation in the six- 
teenth century. Martin Luther, when he rose up against 
the authority of the papacy, acted from the impulse of a 
principle which, abstracted from his action and properly 
defined, we must characterize as that of INDIVIDUAL LIB- 
ERTY, the right of private judgment, the responsibility of 
the individual conscience to God alone, individualism. 
This mighty truth, this vast and fruitful idea, by the 
strength with which it actuated Luther, and by his agency 
in opening to it a career of development in the world, was 
that which made him truly and properly an epoch making 
man. or, with all reverence for the other great reform- 
ers, especially, for Calvin, Melancthon and Knox, nor can 
we leave out Erasmus, their relation to Luther seems to 
have been somewhat similar to that of La Place to Sir 
Isaac Newton. 

Now, this principle, like all other ideas which have ex- 
erted a regenerating and transforming influence upon the 
world, had its birth in a fact of religion, and, consequently, 
it was first applied to doctrinal, moral and church reforms. 
But, self-evidently, it could not be limited to them, and, 
in fact, the history, religious, political and social, of all the 
Protestant peoples to the present hour has chiefly consisted 
of the progressive development, and more and more exten- 


RELIGION AND POLITICS 455 


sive realization of this idea. For hence we have the re- 
formed religion—all that this word signifies. Hence came 
Oliver Cromwell, the English, American and French revo- 
lutions, with all their fruits and consequences in modern 
history. Hence, also, we have all our free institutions— 
our free thought, free press, free schools, free Bible, and 
free church—our freedom of scientific investigation and 
publication—together with that riches and bloom of phi- 
losophy, literature and science, especially that stupendous 
development of the physical sciences in application to the 
industrial arts, in the midst of which it is our happiness to 
live. For the immeasurable superiority in all these par- 
ticulars of Protestant to papal countries—except I*rance 
alone, emancipated to a great extent from papal domina- 
tion by the revolution—is evidence enough that they 
spring from the germinal principle of the Protestant re- 
formation. 

But it was on the American continent, in this new and 
vast country, and by reason of the antecedents, character 
and objects of the first settlers, that this great religious, 
political and social principle found a wider and more 
favorable sphere—its true and proper home. Consequently, 
American history, more than any other, consists of its ever 
progressive development and realization. For it has given 
us that individualism of character, that self-reliance, daring 
enterprise and abounding energy, which, in religion, 
politics and business, are so strikingly characteristic of the 
American mind. Hence, also, we derive our prevailing 
mode or tendency to question, investigate, discuss and 
criticise, rather than to believe. For in all departments 
of thought and life—in science, art and philosophy—in 
theology, religion and morals—in the family, the state and 
the church—there seems to be nothing too great or too 
small, too high or too low, too sacred or too profane, for 
our individual criticism. This principle places us also in 
constant and strenuous resistance to the authority of tradi- 


456 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


tion and to prescriptive rights. Indeed, it can hardly be 
doubted but that we have already attained to extreme and 
pernicious results in this direction; nor would it be sur- 
prising if those who shall come after us should proceed 
still further in the development of the idea, and reject 
much of what we still retain of our precious inheritance 
from the past. Certain it is, that if this habit of mind 
should continue to grow upon us, as it is sure to do if it be 
not powerfully checked, it will, in time, lead us to the re- 
jection of many important truths, sound maxims and 
wholesome customs, which as yet are hardly ever questioned. 

The application of this principle in matters of religion 
has given us our religious liberty, with all its unspeakable 
blessings. Hence, also, we have that vast multitude of 
religious sects or denominations, with all their evils, by 
which Protestant Christianity is characterized, in distinction 
from the outward and formal unity of Romanism. And 
here it would seem that we have already reached very 
extreme results, which exert no little influence to under- 
mine and subvert the faith of the people. Nor is 
there anything in the principle from which all these sects 
have sprung to restrain it from continuing to multiply 
them. Within the present generation, it has rent in 
twain the Methodist, Presbyterian and Protestant Epis- 
copal branches of the church, and given us a number of 
new denominations, to say nothing of Mormonism, or of 
innumerable spiritualist circles. It is still in full course 
of development, and continues to threaten other com- 
munions. Where will it naturally stop? Let it run on 
to the last extremes of which it is capable in logic, and it 
must subvert the very idea of catholic unity, and make 
each individual hisown church. All that is necessary to en- 
sure this result is, that the same mental processes should 
continue to repeat themselves. Here, then, the principle 
from which they spring requires to be limited, of which, 
indeed, we are not without encouraging signs, such as that 


——<—=rl cc —it 


RELIGION AND POLITICS 457 


of the late re-union of two branches of the Presbyterian 
church. The last and now the only hope of Romanism in 
the world lies in the possibility that Protestantism may 
not have the wisdom to apply these limitations in time to 
save the faith of the people. 

In civil society, this principle has given us our free in- 
stitutions, with all their innumerable blessings. As the 
right of self-government, it has originated and sustains 
our national, state, county, township, and municipal organ- 
izations. Hence the whole country is divided and sub- 
divided again and again, in order that local self-government 
may be the more perfectly realized. But it is evident that 
the idea admits of still further development in the political 
separation of the northern and southern, eastern and west- 
ern portions of the country from each other, and of each 
state from all the others, and in their setting up for them- 
selves as so many independent sovereignties. To this 
result the late rebellion would inevitably have led, if it 
had not been suppressed. Nay, beyond all this, the re- 
motest consequences of this principle would displace the 
very idea of states and sovereignties, and would constitute 
each individual the supreme law and sole arbiter of his 
own life and conduct. But this is anarchy, which is by 
no means an impossible state of society; for it seems to 
have been the actual condition of the Israelites at the 
close of that historic period which is covered by the Book 
of Judges, when “there was no king in Israel, and every 
man did that which was right in his own eyes;” and what 
a state of political and social disorganization these words 
were intended to represent is evident from that horrid 
affair of the Levite’s concubine, in which one whole tribe 
was almost exterminated, and which closes in that stormy 
period. Hence the uncontrollable reaction which followed, 
and the establishment of monarchy on the ruins of their 
former liberties, in order to save society. Nor is there any 
other way to escape precisely similar results in American 

20 


458 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


society but by the severe limitation of the now dominant 
principle of individualism. 

Wecome now to consider the application of this princi- 
ple in that large sphere where religion, morals and politics 
are inseparably interwoven with each other. Here, then, 
we may observe, first, that there is nothing in it opposed 
to polygamy, or to restrain any man from marrying as 
many women as he can induce to become his wives. Hence 
we have lived to see United States officials exercising, in a 
perfectly valid form, all the functions of territorial goy- 
ernment, with harems of women around them more numer- 
ous than that of the Grand Turk. This is a significant 
fact, well worthy of being comprehended in connection 
with the principle from which it originates, and by which 
it is claimed to be justified. Hence, also, our communities 
of free-lovers, and their impurity, together with the facil- 
ity and enormots multiplication of divorces among us.* 
For where all parties freely consent to such arrangements, 
the idea of individual liberty is more perfectly realized. 
Here, again, therefore, the principle of which such abom- 
inations are the logical consequences requires to be limited. 

Moreover, the principle itself admits of an easy trans- 
lation into the received formula, that the governmental 
powers are derived from the consent or concessions of the 
governed, But it is self-evident that men cannot concede 
to government any rights or powers which they do not 
themselves possess; and no man is possessed of the right 


* From court records in several of the New England States, we find 
that in 1878, there were granted in Rhode Island 196 divorces—in 1880, 
246 ; in Maine, 1878, 478—1880, 510; in Massachusetts, 1878, 600. During 
the three years between 1866 and 1869, in Massachusetts, there were granted 
1352 divorces; and between 1876 and 1879, 2255—an increase of 903. In 
this last state, also, the ratio of divorces to marriages has risen in twenty 
years from one in fifty-one to one in twenty one. It is probable that this 
ratio of increase is not less in other states, and that in some it is much 
greater. Such in this particular are the extreme consequences of the 
principle of individual liberty in connection with the secularization of 
marriage. 


RELIGION AND POLITICS 459 


to take away his own life for any cause, or in any circum- 
stances. Consequently they cannot concede to, nor vest in 
their governments the authority or power to deprive them 
of their lives, so that, under this formula, governments 
have no legitimate power to inflict the death-penalty, and 
capital punishment becomes judicial murder. Here, then, 
we are enabled to comprehend those restless agitations 
against the exercise of this power which we constantly 
experience, which have already excluded it from the penal 
code of several of our states, which render it almost im- 
possible to obtain capital conviction in others, and which, it 
is easy to foresee, must ultimately abolish it altogether, if 
the principle from which such consequences flow be not 
severely limited. 

But the most striking and significant example of ex- 
treme results in this sphere of the development of the 
principle is found in the attempts which are made to sec- 
ularize the state, and to eliminate all religious and moral 
character and aims from politics—attempts which have 
proved largely, if not altogether successful. For this 
principle has so far moulded our fundamental and organic 
Jaws that they claim to be absolutely neutral and indifferent 
with respect to all the various religions of mankind. In 
order that every individual may be not only free, but 
wholly unbiassed in his religious belief and opinions by 
governmental influence, the constitution of the United 
States has rigorously abstained from all recognition of the 
Christian religion. It nowhere mentions the name, or 
recognizes the being of God, unless it be in its date, 
to which, of course, no significance can be attached. 
Also, it prescribes and ordains that “no religious test 
shall ever be required as a qualification for any office or 
public trust.” Consequently it cannot and does not 
require any official oath in the name of God. What 
is called the oath of the president elect, and which 
serves as a model for all others, is prescribed in these 


460 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


words, “I solemnly swear or affirm,” so that he is left free 
to swear by nothing at all, and thus to leave out, not only 
all recognition of God, but also the very essence of an 
oath. Whenever the name of God is introduced in any 
transaction under the constitution of the United States, or 
of any particular State, in any department of government, 
executive, legislative, or judicial, it is purely optional. 
The avowed object, and, in large measure, the practical 
effect of all this is the secularizaticn of civil government, 
and its neutrality in religion, so that no governmental in- 
fluence shall be exerted-for or against any form of religious 
belief. 

All this is fully admitted and strenuously defended by 
the commentators on the constitution of the United States. 
Says one of them: “ It has been objected by some against 
the constitution, that it makes no mention of religion, con- 
tains no recognition of the existence and providence of 
God... But there were other reasons why the introduction 
of religion would have been unseasonable, if not improper. 
The constitution was intended exclusively for civil pur- 
poses, and religion could not be regularly mentioned. The 
difference among the various sects of Christians is such 
that, in an instrument where all are entitled to equal con- 
sideration, it would have been difficult to use words in 
which all could cordially join... The purity of religion is 
best preserved by keeping it separate from government... 
It was impossible to introduce into the constitution even an 
expression of gratitude to the Almighty for the formation 
of the present government” !! Such are the views of the 
commentators, in which they manifest a conspicuous zeal 
for maintaining the purity of religion “by keeping it 
separate from government”; but, unfortunately, they do 
not inform us what is to preserve the purity of government, 
after it has thus repudiated all religious character and ob- 
jects, and sequestered itself as much as possible from that 
which is the only salt of the earth. It were “ devoutly 


RELIGION AND POLITICS 461 


to be wished” that some eminent publicist of the secular 
school would rise and speak to this point. 

It is true, however, that some of our state constitutions 
have in their preambles recognitions of God and of the 
Christian religion. But where this is the case, they have 
no authority, and are, in fact, invalidated by the paramount 
authority of the national constitution, which abrogates 
everything in the constitutions and laws of the states 
which is inconsistent with itself. Others of these instru- 
ments contain provisions of positive hostility to Christianity, 
which are also invalidated by the neutral character of the 
paramount law. ‘The constitution of the state of New 
York, however, in everything except the preamble, is an 
admirable example of perfect religious neutrality, and the 
more significant from the greatness and typical character 
of the state and people. For it guarantees the largest 
liberty to all persons with respect to all religions, “ with- 
out distinction or preference ;” and, that the original in- 
tent of this expression was to place all other religions, and 
all the infidelities of the world, upon an exact level with 
Christianity before the government, we have the best pos- 
sible evidence. For, being well acquainted with the emi- 
nent and accomplished gentleman to whom chiefly that in- 
strument owes its present form, and happening to meet 
him soon after its adoption, we took occasion to say: 
“You, sir, have succeeded in doing what probably no 
other man could have done. For, having yourself been 
born and brought up and moulded in all your faculties 
under the influence of Christianity, you have given usa 
constitution for the government of a great Christian people, 
which covers a vast extent and variety of topics, and yet 
from which, in no single word or form of expression, 
could it even be inferred that such a fact as the Christian 
religion had ever existed.” ‘ Ah,” he replied, “ how well 
you have understood it, for that was just what we intended 
to do.” Yet was he anything but an irreligious person ; 


462 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


on the contrary, he was a regular attendant and a liberal 
supporter of an evangelical church. But such was his 
theory of civil government. A Christian person, even a 
Christian family, he could understand and appreciate ; but 
a Christian state or nation was, in his mind, something al- 
together inconsistent with the religious liberty of the in- 
dividual. 

The further development of this principle in the sphere 
of religion and politics must lead, by necessary conse- 
quence, to the abrogation of all our existing laws for the 
protection of the Christian Sabbath, for the punishment of 
blasphemy, and the like; as, also, to the banishment from 
our legislative bodies, army and navy, of all observances 
of the Sabbath, chaplaincies and religious services, and of all 
recognition of God and the Christian religion from the 
messages of our chief magistrates, both state and national. 
Even the executive appointment or recommendation of 
thanksgiving and fast days must cease, because, being goy- 
ernmental acts with distinction and preference in matters 
of religious belief, and exerting a governmental influence 
in favor of Christianity, and against infidelity, scepticism 
and all non-Christian religions, they are inconsistent with 
the spirit and letter of our fundamental and organic law. . 
Hence the agitation, on the part of rigorous theorists, 
which we encounter from time to time, calling for their 
abolition. In fact, all such observances are the debris of 
a former and now obsolete idea, that of a Christian state, 
which are still tolerated among us—the laws against Sab- 
bath desecration and blasphemy being mostly a dead letter 
—because their religious character and influence are so ill- 
defined and ineffectual, and because our civil institutions 
are as yet imperfectly purified from religion. 

In addition to all this, the influence of this jealous neu- 
trality of our national and state governments, with respect to 
religion, upon our public men, political parties and political 
life, in general, seems to be evil in the extreme. For it is evi- 


RELIGION AND POLITICS 463 


dent that a government can be administered according to its 
true intents and aims only by men who are in full sympathy 
with its character: and, since our constitutions do thus repu- 
diate all influences which can bias the minds of individuals 
for or against any religious belief, they cannot but act, in a 
powerful though subtle manner, to repel from their offices 
of trust, and from political organizations under them, such 
men as have any religious character, and to attract those 
who have as few religious scruples as possible. Accord- 
ingly, it has been observed that our best and ablest men 
are not in public life, and that our chief magistrates have 
hardly ever been professed Christians. Even when favor- 
ably disposed to religion, they have commonly held them- 
selves aloof from church-membership until their retire- 
ment from office. The like is true, with distinguished 
exceptions, of our legislators, judges, aspirants to official 
positions, and public men in general. Here, also, we find 
the true source of that almost total banishment of re- 
ligious and moral ideas, aims and restraints from politics 
which now prevails among us, and of that prodigious, 
ever-increasing political corruption which already perplexes 
and appals the nation. For it is impossible thus to ex- 
clude religion from any sphere of human life without 
making it an uncongenial sphere for the exercise of moral 
principle. But, forsooth, “the purity of religion is best 
preserved by keeping it separate from government!” Now 
this is a two-edged sword. For precisely in the degree in 
which religion is thus sequestered from the corrupting influ- 
ence of government and _ politics, are politics and govern- 
_ment left without the purifying influence of religion : and, 
being thus deprived of the only “ salt of the earth,” they 
naturally fall into irredeemable demoralization and cor- 
ruption, such as that with which we are now afflicted. For 
if we believe only half of what the two great political parties 
say of each other, we must believe that corruption in them 
is therule, rather than the exception. What now is the 


464 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


moral condition of the governments of our large cities ? 
And who does not know that our legislation is bought and 
sold, with scarcely an attempt at disguise or concealment ? 
In the words of one of the leading secular journals of the 
day: “The simple fact is, and it is infatuation to shut our 
eyes to it, that venality in our legislative halls is fast be- 
coming, if it has not already become, our supreme evil, 
the worst scandal and the direst danger of our institutions, 
the very leprosy of our body politic. The little regard 
that has been paid to it has been the greatest of mistakes. 
There is no party end or political principle that can compare 
in importance with the duty of putting an end to this 
profligate legislation. No political measures, whatever 
they are, ought to stand for an instant when used as screens 
for the ravages of this evil.” 

These are some of the fruits of state-secularization, of 
our sequestration of government from religious and moral 
aims and influences ; and the idea is as yet but imper- 
fectly realized—it is in full career of development up to 
the present hour. When it shall have reached its last 
terms; when all appeal to religious motives in politics 
shall have come to be regarded as illegitimate as is now 
the appeal to political motives in religion; when the last 
vestige of moral character and aims shall have been 
eliminated from all our governmental institutions ; what, 
then, is to become of these institutions, which, as all men 
acknowledge, are’ founded on the public virtue of the 
people? For, in consequence of this foundation} they 
cannot stand as great an amount of corruption as other 
forms of government. This is evident from the fact, that, 
however corrupt a monarchy or despotism may become, it 
is always the interest of the ruler to be served in the most 
honest and capable manner, and, hence, he naturally spares 
no pains to secure, in all his subordinate offices, able and 
faithful servants. But now that the offices under our 
government have come to be regarded, not as services, or 


RELIGION AND POLITICS 465 


public trusts, but as rewards, and positions of emolument, 
to be bought with money, there is no price which corrupt 
men cannot afford to pay for them, because they can 
always reimburse themselves, and often make their for- 
tunes, by the plunder of the public. Also, politics occupy 
a much larger sphere of human life in this country than 
in any other. Jor here every man is not only a citizen, 
but also a voter, and is eligible to the highest and most 
lucrative office; hence he naturally becomes a politician. 
Take out of American life all that can properly be charac- 
terized as political, and what a chasm would be left! In 
consequence of this, political corruption among us generates 
wide-spread and profound social corruption. How long 
wil] it be after men have begun to perjure themselves in 
politics before they will perjure themselves in witness- 
bearing? What is to restrain men who sell their votes 
from selling their testimony in our courts of justice? 
What is to hinder the legislator who suffers himself to be 
bribed from employing bribery to secure the acquittal of 
the guilty, and the condemnation of the innocent? The 
breach of public trusts naturally leads to the breach of 
private trusts, and thus the very foundations of social 
morality are subverted. Hence that laxity of commercial 
morals, those defalcations, embezzlements, swindling in 
business, and the like, which, as it seems, were never so 
rife in this country as during the present generation. 

But, perhaps, it might be possible for us to live through 
all this, if it were not for another consequence of our 
state-secularization, or governmental neutrality in religion, 
which is of still deeper and more far-reaching significance, 
namely, the influence which it exerts upon our vast and 
all-moulding system of public education. For, inasmuch 
as all our public schools are strictly governmental institu- 
tions, organized and maintained under constitutions from 
which all religious character and objects have been rigor- 


ously excluded, this character and these objects, including 
20* 


466 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


all religious worship, instruction and influence, must, if the 
principle is to be logically realized, be banished from the 
schools themselves. Even the reading of the Bible, although 
in some of the states the school-laws do ordain that it shall 
not be prohibited, is in palpable conflict with the religious 
neutrality of the organic law. Hence, already, it has been 
almost universally discontinued. And it is one of the 
fundamental laws of this department of our state govern- 
ments, that “no religious test shall ever be required of 
the teachers of our public schools ; and no teacher shall 
be deemed unqualified for giving instruction in them on 
account of his opinions in matters of religious belief,” 
Also, one of the most eminent of American jurists has 
officially decided that “it is no part of the object of our 
public school system to give religious instruction.” How, 
indeed, could he honestly interpret otherwise the organic 
law, or meet the objections which are made against such 
instruction? For it is now the constitutional right of the 
Roman catholic to object: against the use of the Protestant 
version of the Scriptures in these schools, of the Jew 


against the New Testament, and of the heathen and infidel 


against them all. As the matter now stands, every one 
who chooses can say with overwhelming force of argu- 
ment, you have no right or constitutional authority to tax 
me for the instruction of my own or other pcople’s chil- 
dren in a religion in which I do not believe. They have 
the logic of the case all their own way. If, therefore, this 
principle be not limited by some other of equal validity 
and fruitfulness, it will certainly drive out of our schools 
the Bible, prayer, and every vestige of religious worship 
and influence, together with the teaching of all morality 
which rests upon, and is peculiar to the Christian religion. 
This is its inevitable logical consequence, and, already, in 
great measure, the actual result. 

Now, what must be the effect of this extrusion of re- 
ligion and Christian morality from our public schools upon 


RELIGION AND POLITICS 467 


our national character, and upon education itself, is nothing 
less than appalling to contemplate. For there are three 
great ends or objects of education, namely, the communi- 
cation of the most important information, the training or 
discipline of the mind, and the formation of a right 
character, and these three are one; that is to say, all 
sound education is necessarily an organic process, in which 
each of these objects is a means to the attainment of both 
the others. For the communication of the most important 
information, which, of course, is just that which pertains 
to the moral and spiritual world, is one of the most effect- 
ual means of imparting strength and steadiness to the in- 
tellectual faculties ; whilst these two, the knowledge of the 
moral and spiritual world, and strength of intellect, are 
fundamental elements of a right character. In the words 
of a great poet, 


Stupidity is seldom soundly honest. 


By such knowledge, with its proper discipline, the mind 
is fed, nourished and invigorated, as the body by its ap- 
propriate food and healthful exercise. Ignorance is famine 
and starvation to the mind. If that which is communi- 
cated in education be of trivial importance, the mind is 
dwarfed, as the body by insufficient nourishment. If the 
relations between the facts and truths communicated be 
not exhibited, and moral obligations be not impressed, the 
mind is surfeited, as the body by overloading the stomach 
and neglect of exercise. If, in tracing out these relations, 
unsound processes be followed, and immoral tendencies be _ 
not corrected, the mind is warped and distorted, as the 
body by unnatural exercises and contortions. If that be 
given in education for fact or truth which is neither, the 
mind is poisoned, as the body by unwholesome food. It 
is only when the matter of education is fact and truth of 
the deepest significance, in other words, such revelations 


468 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


of the moral and spiritual world as are contained in the 
word of God, and when the child is carefully trained to 
conform himself to their sacred obligations, that the mind 
is adequately nourished, strengthened and broadly devel- 
oped, and attains to its full growth—to the maturity of all 
its faculties and powers. For the human intellect, in dis- 
tinction from that of mere animals, is grafted in, so to 
speak, upon a moral and spiritual root, that is, upon an 
infinite or exhaustless stuck, by which supported and re- 
plenished, it is rendered capable of indefinite growth and 
progress. Hence it is indispensable that it should be trained 
with constant reference to moral truth, in order that it 
should put forth its highest blossoms, and bear its golden 
fruit of true wisdom. And, for this object, nothing can be 
substituted for the truths of Divine revelation. For, to 
interest the minds and hearts of children at the dawning 
of their intellectual and moral life; to acquaint them with 
what is most necessary to be known for their welfare in 
this world and that which is to come; to instruct them in 
the most profound and infallibly correct processes of rea- 
soning ; to imbue their minds with the knowledge of the 
most important history, the noblest eloquence, the most 
inspiring poetry; to quicken in the highest degree their 
perceptions of the true, the beautiful, and the good; to 
inform their minds with sound principles of right and 
justice; to purify and fix their affections upon the most 
exalted objects ; to strengthen and confirm their wills in 
resistance to their temptations; to enable them ever to 
choose aright between good and evil; to make of our sons 
men, and of our daughters women, in the noblest sense of 
these words; to transfigure, ennoble and glorify their whole 
humanity—for the accomplishment of these sublime ob- 
jects, the Holy Scripture alone is adequate, and therefore 
indispensable, both as matter of instruction and principle 
of education. 

What.an immeasurable evil, then, must result from the 


RELIGION AND POLITICS 469 


exclusion of the Bible and religious instruction from our 
public schools! Nor is it possible to provide a sufficient 
remedy in private academies. Jor our great public school 
system is an almost irresistible power to mould the pre- 
vailing ideas of education, so that the views which govern 
it extend to all classes of society and to the whole people. 
Religious instruction and influence, banished from it, must 
soon cease to form any part of school education in the 
community at large. Accordingly, we see that the loss of 
this idea is working a revolution in this whole department, 
and, especially, in the character of those who are engaged 
init. or the system, being deprived of religious and 
moral character and objects, naturally attracts as teachers a 
class of persons who themselves are without religious aims 
or objects, who have as little religious character as possible, 
and who, consequently, are unconscientious, unscrupulous 
people. Such teachers are easily tempted, by the desire to 
flatter both parents and children, to pass hastily over that 
elementary knowledge and training upon which all future 
progress depends, and to increase the number of studies 
beyond all rational limits—crowding one upon another in 
such reckless confusion that education, in any true sense of 
the word, becomes impossible. Hence it is already one of the 
most difficult things to find a school where a boy can be 
placed with any reasonable hope that he will obtain such a 
knowledge of the ancient languages as will enable him to 
read the classics in after life with any facility, pleasure or 
profit. And the same abortive results are equally apparent 
in other branches of education. For, by this overcrowding 
of studies, children of the brightest intellects are soon dis- 
couraged. It is only when they are thoroughly instructed 
in elementary knowledge, and are enabled to master what 
they pass over, so as to keep it light behind them, that 
they can be deeply interested in their studies, so as to face 
without shrinking the darkness which lies before. When 
it becomes dark behind as well as before, they become 


A470 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


confused and disgusted, and their intellectual faculties, in- 
stead of being educated, are enfeebled and stupefied. This 
evil is already enormous, and no less in private than in 
public education, and it is one of the greatest calamities 
that can befall any people. Hence the general outcry 
which we hear from parents and guardians: “What shall 
we do with our children? or, send them where we will, 


they do not learn, and we cannot prevail upon our boys to — 


o to college.” This, in fact, is one of the chief causes of 
$ oO 5] ? 


the relative decline in the number of our youth who 


aspire to collegiate and the higher forms of education, 
namely, that, in the lower departments, they have no genial 
_ Interest awakened in their studies, but become disgusted 
with their blind and fruitless toil. 

The influence of this whole system of education divorced 
from religion and morality is already but too apparent in 
that early loss of the simplicity and innocence of childhood, 
in that precocious development of subtlety and forbidden 
knowledge, which are now so common—in that disgusting 
manishness which dwarfs the stature, enfeebles the intellect, 
and, like the worm in the fruits that ripen too early, causes 
the premature decay and death of so many of our American 
youth. For some one has bitterly said: ‘There are no 
children in America—they are all pigmy men and women 
—and half of them never grow up.’ How, indeed, should 
the humanity in them attain to its full growth and stature 
when they are deprived of that religious and moral in- 
struction in education which is its most necessary food ? 

This mortal evil extends even to the fundamental 
relation between parents and children. For a certain re- 
ligious character, dignity and influence formerly belonged 
to the father of a family ; a certain prophetic, priestly and 
kingly authority was vested in the head of the household, 
in virtue of which he felt obliged to assert for himself, and 
for the mother of his children, a divine right to their 
reverence and obedience, and to set apart some portion of 


RELIGION AND POLITICS A71 


the week for their instruction in their relations and duties 
to God, and to their “ superiors, inferiors and equals.” How 
little of all this remains among us now? How, indeed, 
could it remain after it had ceased to be a self-evident 
truth, that education is essentially a religious and moral 
discipline ? 

In the course of a few generations, the influence of this 
secularized education must extend to the whole population, 
and recast in its own likeness our national character, 
merging its originally deep and moral earnestness in a sort 
of French levity and frivolity, which, indeed) are already 
but too common. For there is no less of truth than of wit 
in the saying, that ‘good Americans, when they die, go 
to Paris.’ Rapidly are we becoming more and more as- 
similated to Parisians. For, of all the influences which 
go to determine what our national character shall be, the 
greatest, it may safely be affirmed, is that of our vast 
system of governmental education. As are the public 
schools of this land, such will be the governing masses of 
the people. If they are Christian, the people will be 
Christian. Ifthe Bible and religion be driven from them, 
we shall become a nation of sceptics and infidels, with 
such morality as they can give us. 

These are some of the extreme consequences, logically 
derived, already extensively realized, and in full course of 
realization up to the present hour, from the principle of 
individual liberty, taken in its widest sense. This is the 
course we are now steering with full sails. Is it not evi- 
dent that, if we continue to pursue it, we must soon find 
ourselves in perilous waters? And when the mast-head 
watch shall utter his thrilling cry, ‘ Breakers ahead, and 
close under the lee-bow,’ there will be no room to ‘wear 
ship’—we must ‘go about’—a sudden and violent 
change of course will be our only and doubtful possibility 
of escape from disastrous shipwreck. If the principle by 
which we are now guided and impelled be not limited, and 


472 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


its extreme consequences arrested by some other historic 
principle of equal validity and fruitfulness, a sudden and 
violent reaction against it is inevitable in no long time ; and 
the longer this is delayed, the greater the lengths to which 
the now dominant idea shall run, the more sudden and the 
more violent must this reaction be, and the greater must be 
the evils of the opposite extreme, into which the American 
mind is as sure to run as that it cannot escape from under 
the laws which have governed all preceding history. There 
is no other way to conserve and perpetuate the innumerable 
and priceless blessings which we owe to the principle but 
by faithfully applying these limitations before it shall be 
too late. 

Now, therefore, we must enquire, what is that other 
principle of historical development, no less true and valid, 
no less evident, and no less fruitful, than the preceding, by 
which it can and ought and must be limited and restrained 
from rushing to these and even greater extremes? We 
answer, it is that of NATIONAL LIBERTY, which involves 
NATIONAL RESPONSIBILITY and THE MORAL AND RE- 
LIGIOUS CHARACTER OF NATIONAL LIFE. It remains to 
develop this idea. 

Let us observe, then, that what we call a nation is not to 
be conceived of as a mere aggregate of individuals, a bare 
collection or collocation of human beings, having only ex- 
ternal relations to each other. A nation is properly an 
organism, with a‘unity of life—a life distinct from that of 
all other nations, and identical in all the individuals of 
which itis composed. Such an organism is a tree, which, 
though capable of being grafted with buds and branches 
from other trees, has yet a distinct life of its own, which is 
one and the same in all its individual parts. Another such 
organism is the human body, with its unity of life. 
National life must needs be a unity, else it could not be life 
at all, for life is essentially one. As the vital force in the 
body of a man is one and not many, so that, if you wound 


RELIGION AND POLITICS 473 


the hands or feet, it is felt in the head, and, if you kill the 
head, the hands and feet also die, so every body politic has 
a distinct life of its own, which is not many but numerically 
one and the same in all its members. Hence it is that 
nations, to acertain extent, follow the analogy of individuals 
in the phenomena of infancy, childhood, youth, maturity, 
decline, old age, decay and dissolution. 

An had oneness of national life, as we see in the preceding 
analogy, does not wholly eeeen upon unity of race, or of 
immediate genealogical descent: ‘For God hath finda of 
one blood [or one life, “for the blood is the life”] all 
nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth,’ 
Hence, in other combinations than those of the same tribe 
descended from a common ancestor, men are capable of 
being constituted into new organisms or states, which soon 
become as conscious of their own separate unity and iden- 
tity as if they were derived from the same particular 
branch of the great family of man. In such cases, how- 
ever, there must be one predominant race, speaking one 
language, to which the individuals of other races are as 
grafts upon the principal stock, by which both the grafted 
and native branches are supported and nourished, and 
whose fulness of ethnic life is such as to absorb and as- 
similate all the heterogeneous elements. Of all this we, 
as a people, afford a striking example; for there is no 
people whose national life is more unique, or whose dis- 
tinctive character is more sharply defined, than our own. 
The word, American, as thus applied, is altogether as pre- 
cise in signification as French, or Spanish, or English, and 
far more so than German. Our nation, though composed 
of almost all the heterogeneous varieties of mankind, 
whilst yet in its infancy, manifests such fulness and strength 
of its peculiar life that, as a vast galvanic battery, it easily 
disintegrates, assimilates and Americanizes those dense 
masses of alien populations which, like the ocean waves 
that bear them, are incessantly rolling in upon us, and 


474 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


which lose all separate form and identity in breaking upon 
our shores. 

This distinctive unity of each nation is fully recognized 
in the exercise of their sovereign powers, and in all their 
dealings one with another. For sovereignty resides in the 
nation alone, as distinguished from the individuals of which 
it is composed. It is a pernicious fallacy to speak of 
American citizens as sovereigns. Individual sovereignty 
is anarchy ; whilst that of the nation manifests itself in 
enacting and causing to be executed its paramount laws, 
from which there is no appeal, in the coining of money 
and regulating the currency, in making war and peace, 
and in other similar exercises of supreme power, all which 
it absolutely prohibits to individuals. In like manner, a 
declaration of war, or a treaty of peace, between any two 
nations, binds every individual in both, without regard to 
their approval or disapproval of the measure. By all such 
sovereign acts of the nation as such, in which no distine- 
tion is or can be made between individuals, it recog- 
nizes itself, and is recognized by other nations, as a unit, 
as a public person, and as responsible to none but God. 

Nor is it less evident that God, in His word and by His 
providence, regards and deals with nations as distinct moral 
beings, and holds them responsible to himself, than that 
they so regard and treat each other. For He represents 
himself as their Creator, no less than of individuals. Men 
do not create them otherwise than as His instruments, and 
as the materials out of which they are made. All mankind 
together are not able to create a blade of grass, nor a par- 
ticle of matter; how much less that highest and most 
complex of all the forms of organic life which we call a 
nation? Creative power belongs to God alone. He is 
not only the Creator, but is also the Preserver of nations, 
and holds their lives in His hands, no less than in the case 
of individuals: “ He... hath determined the times before 
appointed, and the bounds of their habitation, ,, He is the 


RELIGION AND POLITICS _ AT5 


Governor among the nations... The blessed and only Po- 
tentate, the Kings of kings and Lord of lords. . . The king- 
doms of the world are... the kingdom of our Lord Jesus 
Christ... The government [of them] is upon His shoulder. 
... Upon His head are many crowns... Why do the na- 
tions rage, and the peoples imagine a vain thing? The 
kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take coun- 
sel together against the Lord and against His Anointed, 
saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away 
their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall 
laugh ; the Lord shall have them in derision... Be wise 
now, therefore, O ye kings; be instructed, ye judges of the 
earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trem- 
bling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and ye perish from 
the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little.” Such 
are some of the representations which God has given us in 
His word of the moral character and responsibility of na- 
_tions, as such, and of His government over them. 
Consequently, national governments, of whatsoever form, 
derive and hold their authority and all their powers imme- 
diately from God: “For there is no power but of God; 
the powers that be are ordained of God.” Civil govern- 
ment is “the ordinance of God.” ‘The civil magistrate 
“is the minister of God,” and, hence, “he beareth not the 
sword in vain.” And here we have another instance of 
the pernicious fallacy, that government derives its powers 
from the people; for this is not true of any one of them, 
Its form only, not its essence nor its powers, is from the 
people. It is their function to determine the form of their 
government, and what powers God vests in it. They have 
no more authority to take from, or to add to these than 
they have to increase or diminish the authority and powers 
of His church. For the church and the state are equally 
Divine and co-ordinate institutions. God is no less the 
head of the one than the other, and both alike are respon- 
sible to Him, and to Him alone. Hence, nations have a 


476 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


moral character, of which, and of their conduct, He takes 
account in His moral government of the world. He deals 
with them in His providence by rewards and punishments. 
With blessings and prosperity He seeks to quicken the 
national gratitude and obedience; with chastisement and 
afflictions He calls to national humiliation, repentance and 
reformation. And here, as before, in the distribution of 
such rewards and punishments, He makes no distinction 
between the more or less innocent and guilty, just as na- 
tions themselves, in dealing with each other, make no such 
distinctions. In times of peace, health and plenty, these 
blessings are not confined to the good ; nor are the wicked 
alone cut off by war, pestilence and famine. Thus it is 
evident that nations, as such, have a moral and religious 
character and responsibility to God—relations and duties 
to the God of nations and Supreme Ruler of the world, no 
less than individuals themselves, 

What, then, is the moral and religious character of our 
nation? And the only answer that can be given is, that 
we are not a pagan, nor a Mohammedan, nor an infidel, 
but truly and properly a Christian nation. To this, how- 
ever, it is objected, that our national constitution does not 
acknowledge the Christian religion, nor even the being of 
God. But this is true only of the document or charter in 
which the powers and duties of our national organization 
and government are imperfectly defined and prescribed. 
Besides this, and underlying it, there is what has been 
called the vital constitution of the nation, in a sense analo- 
gous to that in which we speak of the constitution of a 
man. Now the charter is, of course, intended to describe 
and set forth this vital constitution; but, as all things hu- 
man are imperfect and liable to error, it is necessarily im- 
perfect in this respect, just as no written paper could exhibit 
in absolute perfection the constitution of a human being ; 
and its imperfection is acknowledged by the nation itself, 
in that it is made subject to amendment as its defects be- 


RELIGION AND POLITICS ATT 


come apparent. But what ought to be regarded as its 
greatest defect is, that it does not recognize the moral, re- 
ligious and Christian character of the nation, nor define 
the rights, powers and moral obligations which are insepa- 
rable from it. This remarkable omission is to be ex- 
plained, however, not by any conscious hostility to the 
Christian religion, but, as we have seen, by the extreme 
development of the principle of individual liberty, from 
which it had come to be generally held, that civil govern- 
ment could not have any religious character or object, but 
must be completely secularized. It was in this way that 
all the Christian elements of our vital constitution as a 
nation were left out of our written constitution; and, in 
order to restore these, and thus to perfect its form, it re- 
quires to be amended by the same authority by which it 
was originally adopted and enacted. For we must ever 
bear in mind that the adoption of our constitution did not 
make us a nation, but we, as a nation, made and adopted 
our constitution. 

The elements of our vital constitution as a Christian 
nation are such as the following: 1. The emigrants from 
the old world who originated our national existence were 
eminently a Christian people. It was chiefly a religious 
impulse which landed them on this continent. They were 
driven from their country and wealth, their kindred, homes 
and churches by religious persecution ; and they sought in 
these western wilds a refuge for their persecuted faith, 
where they might worship God according to their own 
consciences, and might educate their children in the truths 
of the gospel of Christ. They brought with them hardly 
anything but their religion. Such were the founders, not 
only of our nation, but also of our national character. 2. 
A vast preponderance in numbers of the inhabitants of 
our national domain are Christians in this sense, that they 
are not heathens, nor Mohammedans, nor infidels, but 
either true or speculative believers in Christjanity, or, at 


478 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


least, in sympathy with its character and objects. Hence 
they carry with them into all their new settlements, as a 
sacred palladium, or ratheras the ark of their national 
covenant and safety, the word of God, the preaching of 
the gospel, and the Christian church. In the same sense, 
the public opinion of the country is Christian. 8. All our 
great national institutions and all our best social customs 
are founded in, and draw their nourishment and support 
from the Christian religion. These are such as our free gov- 
ernment, free thought, free speech, free press, free schools, 
free Bible, and free church, in all their local ramifica- 
tions and territorial expansion. For where, beyond the 
pale of Christianity, is there any such freedom? Where 
else, indeed, but in a Christian country are such institu- 
tions and customs possible, or even conceivable? 4, In 
fine, the common law of’ the land, on which all our statutes 
of justice and equity are founded, and under which, directly 
or indirectly, all our judicial verdicts and decisions of our 
courts are rendered, is the law of Christian morality, as 
distinguished from the morality of other religions. And 
here we have a point where religion and politics are self- 
evidently inseparably blended together, and where the 
complete secularization of government is manifestly im- 
possible. For the morality which is peculiar to some reli- 
gion must, of necessity, be the common law of every coun- 
try ; and these moralities are very different from each other. 
Pagan morality allows and often justifies infanticide, polyg- 
amy, polyandria, the burning of widows, and a thousand 
similar abominations. Mohammedan and Mormon moral- 
ity justifies and encourages polygamy and private vengeance. 
All these are prohibited by our laws and punished. as 
crimes for no other reason but because the common law of 
the land is that of Christian morality. Such are the chief 
elements of our Christian constitution and character as a 
nation, from which it is sufficiently evident that the 
complete secularization of the state, the absolute divorce 


RELIGION AND POLITICS 479 


of politics from morality and religion, is impossible, and 
only a vain dream of extreme theorists. 

Here we would gladly arrest this argument, without any 
discrimination between “those who profess and call them- 
selves Christians,” but the plain truth of the case carries 
us further. For we are no less a Protestant than we are 
a Christian nation. All our civil and religious liberties, 
all our free institutions, our morality, and our civilization 
itself, are the outbirth and development of Protestant 
Christianity. Nor is the truth of this even limited by the 
fact, that Romanism is found among us; for it is nothing 
properly American, but an exotic, purely a foreign growth, 
not yet assimilated, that is to say, Americanized. The 
members of that communion are mostly foreign born. Its 
head, whom both priests and people are sworn to obey in 
all things spiritual and temporal, claims to be a foreign 
prince, with full power to absolve his subjects from their 
allegiance to other governments under which they live—a 
power which he has often actually exercised. Whilst they 
remain his subjects, they cannot, in good faith, enter into 
and constitute any part of our American nationality. As 
they become Americanized, they cease to be Romanists—a 
process which is constantly going on. For in spite of the 
perfection of their organization, and all they can do to 
prevent it, incredible numbers of their children born in 
this country escape from under their control. Thus, as we 
learn from the statistics of the Propaganda at Rome, they 
have already lost one half of their numbers; that is to 
say, if all the emigrants with their children had remained 
in their communion, they would have been twice as numer- 
ous in this country as they are now. Their church itself, 
under Protestant influence, is evidently undergoing a 
great transformation, especially in the purification of its 
corrupt morality. For they can no more escape from the 
all-transforming influence of our American institutions and 
customs—our free government, free thought, free press and 


480 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


waiversal education—than they can escape from the in- 
fluences of the climate. They are fast being grafted into the 
stock of our Protestant nationality, and the life which cir- 
culates in all their veins and thoughts is a Protestant life, 
which ensures that, in becoming Americans, they must 
cease to be Romanists. 

Since, then, we are, indeed, a Christian and a Protestant 
nation ; since the nation is a rational and moral creature 
of God who has made us what we are, and who is the 
source of all our blessings; and since all our national in- 
stitutions and blessings, yea, even our civilization itself, are 
the fruits of Protestant Christianity ;—all this surely must 
involve a national responsibility, which cannot be conceived 
of as requiring anything less than some public and legal 
acknowledgement of the being and providence of God, of 
our dependence upon Him, and of our subjection to His 
moral laws, It cannot be otherwise but that it is our 
bounden duty to recognize and honor, in our most signifi- 
cant national and governmental acts, the source from which, 
and the channel through which, all our blessings have been 
derived to us. It is our bounden duty, as a nation, no less 
than as families and as individuals, to honor and worship 
our God and Creator. For no intelligent and moral crea- 
ture can with impunity refuse or decline, for any reason 
whatsoever, thus to worship and honor its Creator. As 
the individual and the family, so the nation must thus 
bring upon itself His sovereign displeasure and a grievous 
punishment. or it is a violation of the moral constitu- 
tion and order of nature when the child, for any reason, or 
to gain any object, refuses to own its parentage. 

Also, moral responsibility implies moral freedom. What- 
Soever we, as a nation, are morally bound to do, that 
we are of right free to do. And here we must bear in 
mind that there are two classes of rights and liberties 
which require to be guarded with perpetual vigilance, that 
they may not unduly encroach upon each other. The first 


RELIGION AND POLITICS 481 


is that of the individual, which, pushed to its utmost ex- 
treme, results, as we have seen, is anarchy. The other is 
that of society, whether civil or ecclesiastical, which, in 
extreme development, absorbs that of the individual. In 
one of these extremes the pope and the autocrat of Russia 
sit upon their desolate and hollow thrones; and we lose 
what ought to be dearer to us than life, that is, our nation’s 
liberty and right to worship God, whilst we rush to the 
other. or where we now stand, this inalienable right of 
the nation is absorbed and nullified by the encroachments 
of individual liberty. The golden mean is ever the path 
of safety. If, then, we area Christian and a Protestant 
nation, in the name of the people, in the name of the 
truth, in the name of God, we are free and have the right 
to say so in our constitutions, laws, and other governmental 
and national acts. It is our inalienable right to acknowl- 
edge, worship and honor our God as a free Christian and 
Protestant nation. And we are obliged to vindicate this 
right at all hazards. For to yield it up is to renounce our 
national parentage, birthright and character ; it is to repu- 
diate our national religion and our dependence upon God, 
in whom our fathers trusted; it is to betray ourselves 
blindfolded and manacled, as our children will find to their 
sorrow, in the very citadel of our religious liberties. 

But, it will be asked, does not all this imply some form 
of Erastianism, or, at least, some modified union of church 
and state, which American institutions cannot tolerate ? 
We answer that it implies nothing of the kind. For 
Erastianism makes the church the creature of the state, as 
in the writings of Hobbes, the philosopher of Malmsbury, 
which we hold to be an abomination in the sight of God. 
And the union of church and state, in any form, neces- 
sarily implies, either some sort of state control over the 
church, as in England, or some sort of church control 
over the state, according to the papist theory. Now both 
of these things we cordially repudiate, and that, in the 

21 


482 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


name of every branch of the Protestant church in this 
country. The doctrine here advocated is, that the church 
and the state, as also the family, are all co-ordinate insti- 
tutions, independent of each other, each supreme within 
its own sphere, and all alike of divine appointment, hay- 
ing one and the same head and fountain of all their au- 
thority and powers in God, whom, consequently, they are 
all alike obliged by the most solemn obligations to ac- 
knowledge, worship and obey. It is as false and wrong 
for the state to fail in this duty as it is for the family or 
the chureh. When the state, for any reason, claims to 
have no moral character, object, or duties to God, it falls 
into a gross anomaly, and exemplifies that to which the 
Psalmist refers in ‘kings and rulers taking counsel to- 
gether to break God’s bands asunder, and to cast away 
His cords from them, at all which He that sits in the 
heavens laughs and holds them in derision.’ 

In fine, all that is here contended for would require but 
a very slight change, and that, in the preamble of our na- 
tional charter, such as the following: “ We, the people of 
the United States,” [claiming to be a Christian and a 
Protestant nation], “do ordain and establish this constitu- 
tion.” The insertion of that simple clause would bring 
our national charter into harmony with our vital constitu- 
tion as a nation, with which it is now in conflict, and 
would open an unobstructed channel to the true currents 
of our national life. It would leave all denominations 
calling themselves Christians whatever liberties they now 
enjoy to follow their natural developments, and to exert 
all the influence of which they are capable: it would com- 
plicate no question between them, and it would give them 
all, except the foreign element of Romanism, a great ad- 
vantage in prosecuting the glorious work in which they 
are all co-laborers together with the fathers of the re- 
formation, and with all true friends of civil and religious 
liberty. It would reclaim for us, in our fundamental and 


RELIGION AND POLITICS 483 


organic law, the inalienable right, which we have so fool- 
ishly disclaimed, to worship our fathers’ God in our legis- 
lative bodies, army and navy, and in our courts of justice ; 
to require an oath in His name of our civil magistrates, 
and in witness-bearing; to observe, as a nation, and to 
protect by laws and penalties, our Christian Sabbath ; to 
punish blasphemy, polygamy, adultery and seduction ; to 
inflict the death-penalty for murder; and to make the 
word of God matter of instruction and principle of edu- 
cation in our all-moulding system of governmental educa- 
tion. It would legitimate all these and other elements of 
our vital constitution as a Christian nation, which are now 
illegitimate, and only partially tolerated—as the disjointed 
fragments and debris of a former system of ideas, that of 
a Christian state, held so sacred by our forefathers who 
established our institutions—and which, in the ultimate 
development of the now dominant principle, must inevita- 
bly disappear altogether. Nor could it fail to exert a 
powerful influence to purify our political life by restoring 
to it moral and religious character, objects and aims. For 
never did Protestants fall into a greater anomaly and 
blunder than by eliminating such objects from civil gov- 
ernment and politics, but for which the reformation itself 
could never have established itself in the world. If it 
had not been for the support of Protestant princes and 
governments, even by long and bloody wars, in which 
hundreds of thousands sacrificed their lives in defence 
of the truth, Protestantism must have been strangled at 
its birth. It originated, maintained its existence, and 
propagated itself as a political, no less than as a re- 
ligious principle; and when it denies to civil government 
all religious and moral character and abjects, it commits 
suicide. 
Whatever may be demanded of us in the name of indi- 
vidual religious liberty by infidels, pagans, papists and 
Mormons, who number only a few in every thousand of 


484 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


our Christian population—whatever they may demand 
which is inconsistent with our Christian and Protestant 
character, as a nation, must be strenuously denied. For 
if we admit these extreme consequences of the principle, 
Wwe give the death-blow to our national unity, liberty and 
responsibility. The nation, as distinguished from the in- 
dividuals of which it is composed, is deprived of every 
vestige of religious liberty—is prohibited the exercise of 
its religion—the very foundation of our free institutions 
and of our national existence is subverted. The principle 
of national liberty gives us all the answer we need to these 
brazen demands, as follows : 

Children of the papacy, do we not know you, through 
all your historical antecedents and the principles which 
you unblushingly avow, as the sworn enemies of both re- 
ligious and civil liberty? When did you ever concede 
either the one or the other where you had the power to 
withhold or crush it? Who can number the martyrs of 
both whom you have tortured and slain ? Having fled 
from your own countries, where, crushed to the earth by 
the despotism of your priests and princes, you had neither 
liberty nor bread nor hope, you have taken refuge in the 
protecting arms and fostering bosom of a free Protestant 
nation. We have received you to liberty, plenty, and a 
new life, the fruits to us of our Christian and Protestant 
nationality: And, now, with shameless effrontery, you 
demand, in the name of religious liberty, as a right of 
your consciences, that we banish the word and worship of 
God from all our public schools and national institutions, 
which, as you yourselves avow through your highest au- 
thorities, must inevitably result in making us a nation of 
infidels. If, indeed, this be the freedom of conscience 
which only, will content you, once for all, you cannot be 
gratified—set your hearts at rest—and if without this you 
cannot be contented, we give you permission to return to 
your own nationalities, and to the Italian priest who is 


RELIGION AND POLITICS 485 


your temporal prince, of whom you may demand rights 
and liberties, and see what he will give you. 

Enemies of the Christian religion, infidels, by whatso~ 
ever particular name you are called, we did not receive 
our free institutions, nor any of the priceless blessings 
which distinguish us from all other peoples, from you, but 
from our God through the channel of His word and the 
faith of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are a Christian na- 
tion, and, as such, we are free and responsible to God. 
Whatsoever rights, liberties and blessings you can enjoy 
among us in consistency with this our Christian character, 
as a nation, are freely yours. We will defend them with 
our blood as strenuously for you as for ourselves. We 
will not touch your freedom to worship God, or not, as to 
you may seem best. If you are willing to incur the re- 
sponsibility, you may deny that He exists, and we, on our 
highest authority, will do no more than to regard you as 
the fool who hath said in his heart, “There is no God.” 
But, now, you demand, in the name of religious liberty, as 
a right of your consciences, not only that we banish the 
word and worship of God from our public schools, but 
also that we abolish all religious exercises in our legislative 
bodies, army and navy, and all legal protection for our 
Christian Sabbath; that we refuse to acknowledge God 
and our Christian nationality in our constitutions and laws; 
that we thus repudiate the source from which, and the 
channel through which, we have derived all our national 
institutions and blessings. This, as you are well aware, 
would soon bring us to your ground, and make of us a 
nation of infidels. | | 

To you, also, therefore, we say, that, if this be the 
liberty of conscience which only will content you, it is 
time that you should be informed that we also have con- 
sciences, which bind us by the most sacred of all obliga- 
tions to acknowledge and worship our God in our most 
solemn and significant national acts, and to educate our 


486 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


children in the glorious truths of the Christian religion. 
We will defend and maintain our inalienable right to do 
this, God helping us, against the world in arms. Beware 
how you touch it. You cannot be gratified in your preposter- 
ous demands—set your hearts at rest—and if you cannot 
be contented, go form a nation and a state for yourselves 
wherever you can find a place, and see if infidelity will do 
for you what Christianity has done for us. 

If a similar difficulty should arise in a Christian family, 
how would it be treated? A Christian father has a son 
who is-still a member of his family, but who does not be- 
lieve in God. He goes to his father, and says: Father, 
we must abolish family worship. You have no right to 
Insist that we, as a family, shall worship a God in whom 
I do not believe, and whose existence I deny. For it 
places me in an unequal and irksome relation to the other 
members of the household. You may pow-wow in private 
as much as you please, but I insist that we have nothing 
of the kind in common. What answer would a good and 
wise father make to such a demand ? Why, he would say, 
My son, you are unreasonable—you cannot be gratified. I 
will not limit your individual liberty. I will not reqnire 
you to attend family prayers. You are now a man, 
and you must judge for yourself on your own responsibil- 
ity. But if you take the ground that this Christian family 
shall not acknowledge nor worship God, because you, as 
an individual, do not believe in Him, I say to-you, with 
Infinite sorrow, my son, there is the door. So we say to 
all objectors against this inalienable right and most sacred 
duty of our nation to acknowledge and worship God. 
And such answer the great palpitating heart of the nation 
how gives—it needs only to be interpreted and justified 
to the intellect of the people, which we have here attempted 
todo. We hear it in the throes of our great cities, whose 
governments are clutched by obscene harpies, who lay 
waste the property of the citizens, whilst they afford no 


RELIGION AND POLITICS 487 


protection even to life. We hear it in the muttering of 
national perplexity over prodigious political corruption. 
Inarticulate as yet, but full.of a vast meaning, like the 
thunderous tramp of armed squadrons, like the heavings 
of the earthquake, like the ground-swell of the ocean, is the 
indignation of a mighty people awaking to the conviction 
that they have been beguiled by political quackery into the 
surrender of the most precious liberties and rights of a 
free Christian and Protestant nation. 

In conclusion, we venture to predict that the time is not 
far distant when some capable man, putting himself at the 
head of the political movement which is thus making 
itself obscurely felt, will become the most popular candi- 
date for the chief magistracy of the nation. This great 
Christian and Protestant people, whose patience has become 
exhausted by intolerable political corruption, and by the 
demoralization of its educational interests, will stand by 
him in his efforts to re-vindicate our national religious 
liberty. Raising his voice in behalf of the nation’s 
right to worship God, he will speak into clear conscious- 
ness their own dim and struggling thoughts, and they will 
hasten to crown him with their highest honors. For the 
selfishness and mockery of the age have not been able to 
quench the sacred flame of patriotism in human hearts; it 
is the true Promethean fire which cannot be extinguished 
whilst an honest and brave man, or a virtuous woman, 
continues to exist. My father land, let me defend and 
honor thee with my life! My mother country, let sight 
fail from my eyes and joy from my heart, when I refuse 
to stand between thee and dishonor! We are lost to all 
good when our hearts do not thrill with the power of this 
great mystery. And the Christian religion, the Protestant 
faith, which has made us what we are for good—by this 
faith we live, and for this faith we are ready to die. For 
it is more to us than country and kindred, father and 
mother, wife and child. We will not betray it. We will 


488 WISDOM OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 


defend and maintain, on all occasions and against all op- 
ponents, our inalienable liberty and right to avow our- 
selves, in our constitutions and laws, in our governmental 
and national acts,a free Christian and Protestant nation. 
And the ages to come will rise up and call us blessed, the 


preservers, as we now bless the authors, of our civil and 
religious liberties, 


THE BEGINNINGS OF HISTORY 


According to the Bible and the Traditions of the Oriental Peoples. From 
the Creation of Man to the Deluge. By FRANCOIS LENORMANT, 
Professor of Archceology at the National Library of France, etc. 
(Translated from the Second French Edition), With an introduction 
by FRANCIS Brown, Associate Professor in Biblical Philology, 
Union Theological Seminary. 


1 Vol., 12mo, 600 pages, - - - $2.50. 


‘¢ What should we see in the first chapters of Genesis ?’’ writes M. Lenor- 
mant in his preface—‘‘A revealed narrative, or a human tradition, gathered 
up for preservation by inspired writers as the oldest memory of their race ? 
This is the problem which I have been led to examine by comparing the nar- 
rative of the Bible with those which were current among the civilized peo- 
ples of most ancient origin by which Israel was surrounded, and from the 
midst of which it came.” 


The book is not more erudite than it is absorbing in its interest. It has 
bad an immense influence upon contemporary thought; and has approached 
its task with an unusual mingling of the reverent and the scientific spirit. 


‘* That the ‘ Oriental Peoples’ had legends on the Creation, the Fall of Man, the 
Deluge, and other primitive events, there is no denying. Nor is there any need of 
denying it, as this admirable volume shows. Mr. Lenormant is not only a believer 
in revelation, but a devout confessor of what came by Moses ; as well as of what came 
by Christ. In this explanation of Chaldean, Babylonian, Assyrian and Phenician 
tradition, he discloses a prodigality of thought and skill allied to great variety of pur- 
suit, and diligent manipulation of what he has secured. He ‘spoils the Egyptians’ 
by boldly using for Christian purposes materials, which, if left unused, might be 
turned against the credibility of the Mosaic records. 

‘“ From the mass of tradition here examined it would seem that if these ancient 
legends have a common basis of truth, the first part of Genesis stands more generally 
related to the religious history of mankind, than if it is taken primarily as one account, 
by one man, to one people. : , é While not claiming for the author the 
setting forth of the absolute truth, nor the drawing from what he has set forth the 
soundest conclusions, we can assure our readers of a diminishing fear of learned un- 
belief after the perusal of this work.’’— The New Englander. 


““ With reference to the book as a whole it may be said: (1) That nowhere else can 
one obtain the mass of information upon this subject in so convenient a form; (2). That 
the investigation is conducted in a truly scientific manner, and with an eminently 
Christian spirit ; (3). That the results, though very different from those in common 
acceptance, contain much that is interesting and to say the least, plausible ; (4). That 
the author while he seems in a number of cases to be injudicious in his state- 
ments and conclusions, has done work in investigation and in working out details that 
will be of service to all, whether general readers or specialists.’—T7he Hebrew 
Student. 


‘* The work is one that deserves to be studied by all students of ancient history, and 
in particular by ministers of the Gospel, whose office requires them to interpret the 
Scriptures, and who ought not to be ignorant of the latest and most interesting con- 
tribution of science to the elucidation to the sacred volume.’’—Nez York Tribune. 


** For Sale by all booksellers, or sent, post-paid, upon receipt of price, 


CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS, PUBLISHERS, 
743 AND 745 BROADWAY, NEW YorRK, 


OUTLINES OF PRIMITIVE BELIEF 


among the Indo-European Races, 


By CHARLES FRANCIS KEARY, M.A., 
of the British Museum. 


One vol. crown Svo., - ~ e = $2.50. 


Mr. Keary’s Book is not simply a series of essays in comparative myth- 
ology, it is a history of the legendary beliefs of the Indo-European races 
drawn from their language and literature. Mr. Keary has no pet theory to 
establish; he proceeds in the spirit of the inquirer after truth simply, and 
his book is a rare example of patient research and unbiased opinion in a most 
fascinating field of exploration. 


** We have an important and singularly interesting contribution to our knowledge 
of pre-historic creeds in the Outlines of pre-historic Belief among the Indo-European 
Races, by Mr. C. F. Keary, of the British Museum. No contemporary essayist in 
the field of comparative mythology—and we do not except Max Miller—has known 
how to embellish and illumine a work of scientific aims and solid worth with so much 
imaginative power and literary charm. There are chapters in this volume that are as 
persuasive as a paper of Matthew Arnold’s, as delightful as a poem. The author is 
not only a trained inquirer but he presents the fruits of his research with the skill and 
felicity of an artist.” —New York Sun. 

‘**Mr. Keary, having unusual advantages in the British Museum for studying 
comparative philology, has gone through all the authorities concerning Hindoo, 
Greek, early Norse, modern European, and other forms of faith in their early stages, 
and there has never before been so thorough and so captivating an exposition of them 
as that given in this book.”’—Philadelphia Bulletin. 


THE DAWN OF HISTORY: 


AN INTRODUCTION TO PRE-HISTORIC STUDY. 
Edited by C, F. KEARY, M.A., 


OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 


One Volume, 12mo., - - - $1.25. 


This work treats successive'y of the earliest traces of man in the re- 
mains discovered in caves or {sewhere in different parts of Europe; of 
language, its growth, and the story it tells of the pre-historic users of it; of 
the races of mankind, early social life, the religions, mythologies, and folk- 
tales of mankind, and of the history of writing. A list of authorities is 
appended, and an index has been prepared specially for this edition. 


“The book may be heartily recommended as probably the most satisfactory 
summary of the subject that there is.’’—azion,. 

‘A fascinating manual, without a vestige of the dullness usually charged against 
scientific works, . . . In its way, the work is a model of what a popular scientific 
work should be; it is readable, it is easily understood, and its style is simple, yet dig- 
nified, avoiding equally the affection of the nursery and of the laboratory.””— 

Boston Sat. Eve. Gazette. 


ne For sale by all booksellers, or sent, post-paid, upon receipt of 
price, by 


CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS, PusBLisHERs, 
743 AND 745 BRoADWAY, NEW York, 


a 


The Religions of the Ancient World 


Including Egypt, Assyria and Babylonia, Persia, India, 
Phoenicia, Etruria, Greece, Rome. 


By GEORGE RAWLINSON, M.A. 
One Volume, 12mo, - - - - $1.00. 


Uniform with ‘‘ The Origin of Nations.” 


Canon Rawlinson’s great learning and his frequent contribu- 
tions to the history of ancient nations qualify him to treat the 
subject of this volume with a breadth of view and accuracy of 
knowledge that few other writers can lay claim to. The treatise 
is not intended to give an exhaustive review of ancient religions, 
but to enable the students of history to form a more accurate 
apprehension of the inner life of the ancient world. 

‘ The historical studies which have elevated this author’s works to the 
highest position have made him familiar with those beliefs which once di- 
rected the world’s thought; and he has done literature no better service 
than in this little volume. . . The book is, then, to be accepted 
as a sketch, and° as the most trustworthy sketch in our language, of the re- 
ligions discussed,""—. Y. Christian Advocate. 


THE ORIGIN OF NATIONS 


By Professor GEORGE RAWLINSON, M.A. 


One Volume, 12mo. With mans, i $1.00. 


The first part of this book, Early Civilizations, discusses the 
antiquity of civilization in Egypt and the other early nations of 
the East. The second part, Ethnic Affinities in the Ancient 
World, is an examination of the ethnology of Genesis, showing 
its accordance with the latest results of modern ethnographical 
science. 

‘* An attractive volume, which is well worthy of the careful consideration 
of every reader.’’— Observer. 


‘* A work of genuine scholarly excellence and a useful offset to a great 
deal of the superficial current literature on such subjects.” 
— Congregationalist. 
‘Dr. Rawlinson brings to this discussion long and patient research, a 
vast knowledge and intimate acquaintance with what has been written on 
both sides of the question." —Brooklyn Union-Argus, . 


*,* For Sale by all booksellers, or sent, post-paid, upon receipt of price, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS, PuBLisHErs, 


743 AND 745 BROADWAY, NEW YoRK. 


The Theory of Preaching, 


LECTURES ONSHORE bites 


By Professor AUSTIN PHELPS, D.D. 


One volume, 8vo, - - ~ - - $2.80 


This work, now offered to the public, is the growth of 
more than thirty years’ practical experience in teaching. 
While primarily designed for professional readers, it will be 
found to contain much that will be of interest to thoughtful 
laymen. The writings of a master of style of broad and 
catholic mind are always fascinating; in the present case the 
wealth of appropriate and pointed illustration renders this 


doubly the case. 
CRITICAL NOTICES. 


“In the range of Protestant homiletical literature, we venture to affirm that its equal 
cannot be found for a conscientious, scholarly, and exhaustive treatment of the theory 
and practice of preaching. * * * ‘To the treatment of his subject Dr. Phelps brings 
su -h qualifications as very few men now living possess. His 1s one of those delicate and 
sensitive natures which are instinctively critical, and yet full of what Matthew Arnold 
happily calls sweet reasonableness. * * ‘To this characteristic graciousness of 
naiure Dr. Phelps adds a style which is preéminently adapted to his special work. It is 
nervous, epigrammatic, and racy."—Zhe Examiner and Chronicle. 

“It is a wise, spirited, practical and devout treatise upon a topic of the utmost con- 
sequence to pastors and people alike, and to the salvation of mankind. It is elaborate 
but not redundant, rich in the fruits of experience, yet thoroughly timely and current, 
and it easily takes the very first rank among volumes of its class.—7he Congrega- 
tionalist. 

‘The layman will find it delightful reading, and ministers of all denominations and 
of all degrees of experience will rejoice in it as a veritable mine of wisdom.”—Vez York 
Christian Advocate, 

“‘The volume is to be commended to young men asa superb example of the art in 
which it aims to instruct them.”—7he Judependent, 

“The reading of it is a mental tonic. Vhe preacher cannot but feel often his heart 
‘burning within him under its influence. We could wish it might be in the hands of every 
theological student and of every pastor.” —The Watchman. 

‘“‘Thirty-one years of experience as a professor of homiletics in a leading American 
Theological Seminary by a man of genius, learning and power, are condensed into this 
valuable volume.” — Christian Intelligencer. 

‘‘ Our professional readers will make a great mistake if they suppose this volume is 
simply a heavy, monotonous discussion, chiefly adapted to the class-room. It is a 
delightful volume for general reading.”—Bostox Zion's Herald. 


spe For sale by all booksellers, or sent, post-paid, upon receipt of 
price, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S.SONS, PuBLISHERS, 


743 AND 745 BROADWAY, NEw YORK. 


Men and Books, 


ii erro eee Ovi le LOS; 


Lectures Introductory to the ‘‘ THEORY OF PREACHING.’’ 


By Professor AUSTIN PHELPS, D.D, 


One Volume. Crown 8vo. - - $2.00 


Professor Phelps’ second volume of lectures is more popular and gen- 
eral in its application than ‘‘ The Theory of Preaching.’’ It is devoted to 
a discussion of the sources of culture and power in the profession of the 
pulpit, its power to absorb and appropriate to its own uses the world of 
real life in the present, and the world of the past, as it lives in books. 


There is but little in the volume that is not just as valuable to all 
students looking forward to a learned profession as to theological students, 
and the charm of the style and the lofty tone of the book make it difficult 
to lay it down when it is once taken up. 


“Tt is a book obviously free from all padding. It is a Zéve book, animated as well 
as sound and instructive, in which conventionalities are brushed aside, and the author 
goes straight to the marrow of the subject. No minister can read it without being waked 
up to a higher conception of the possibilities of his calling.” 

—Professor George P. Fisher. 


“Tt is one of the most helpful books in the interests of self-culture that has ever Leen 
written, While specially mtende i for young clergymen, it is almost equally well adapted 
fur students in all the liberal professions.” —Standard of the Cross. 


“* We are sure that no minister or candidate for the ministry can read it without profit. 
It is a tonic for one’s mind to read a book so Jaden with thought and suggestion, and 
writien in a style so fresh, strong and bracing.”—Sostox Watchman. 


“ Viewed in this light, for their orderly and wise and rich suggestiveness, these lec- 
tures of .Professor Phelps are of simply incomparable merit, Every page is crowded with 
observations and suggestions of striking pertinence and force, and of that kind of wisdom 
which touches the roots of a matter. Should one begin to make quotations illustrative of 
this remark, there would be no end of them. While the book is meant specially for the 
preac:ier, so rich is it in sage remark, in acute discernment, i in penetrating observation of 
how men are most apt to be influenced, and what are the most telling qualities in the va- 
rious forms of literary expression. it must become a favorite treatise with the best minds in 
all the other professions. ‘The author is, in a very high sense of the term. an artist, as for 
a quarter of a century he has been one of the most skillful instructors of young men in 
that which is the nobiest of all the arts.”—Chzcago Advance, 


*,% For sale by all booksellers, or ey post-paid, upon receipt of 
price, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS, PuBLisHERs, 


743 AND 745 BROADWAY, NEw York. 


Old Faiths in New Light 


BY 


NEWMAN SMYTH, 
Author of **The Religious Feeling.” 


One Volume, 12mo, cloth, - - - $1.80. 


This work aims to meet a growing need by gathering materials of 
faith which have been quarried by many specialists in their own depart- 
ments of Biblical study and scientific research, and by endeavoring to 
put these results of recent scholarship together according to one leading 
idea in a modern construction of old faith, Mr. Smyth’s book is remark- 
able no less for its learning and wide acquaintance with prevailing modes 
of thought, than for its fairness and judicial spirit. 


CRITICAL NOTICES, 


“The author is logical and therefore clear. He also is master of a singularly 
attractive literary style. Few writers, whose books come under our eye, succeed in 
treating metaphysical and philosophical themes in a manner at once so forcible and so 
interesting. We speak strongly about -this book, because we think it exceptionally 
valuable. It is just such a book as ought to be in the hands of all intelligent men and 
women who have received an education sufficient to enable them to read intelligently 
about such subjects as are discussed herein, and the number of such persons is very 
much larger than some people think.” — Congregationalist. 


** We have before had occasion to notice the force and elegance of this writer, and 
his new book shows scholarship even more advanced. * * * When we say, with 
some knowledge of how much is undertaken by the saying, that there is probably no book 
of moderate compass which combines in greater degree clearness of style with profundity 
of subject and of reasoning, we fulfil simple duty to an author whose success is all the 
more marked and gratifying from the multitude of kindred attempts with which we have 
been flooded from all sorts of pens.”—Presbyterian. 


““The book impresses us as clear, cogent and helpful, as vigorous in style as it is 
honest in purpose, and calculated to render valuable service in showing that religion and 
science are not antagonists but allies, and that both lead up toward the one God. We 
fancy that a good many readers of this volume will entertain toward the author a feeling 
of sincere personal gratitude.”—Boston Yournal. 


‘On the whole, we do not know of a book which may better be commended to 
thoughtful persons whose minds have been unsettled by objections of modern thought. 
It will be found a wholesome work for every minister in the land to read.” 

—Examiner and Chronicle. 


‘Tt is a long time since we have met with an abler or fresher theological treatise 
than Old Faiths in New Light, by Newman Smyth, an author who in his work on 
“The Religious Feeling” has already shown ability as an expounder of Christian 
doctrine.” —/udependent. 


*,* For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid, upon receipt of price, 


CHARI.ES SCRIBNER’S SONS, 


Nos. 743 AND 745 BRoapway, NEw York. 


By! 


The 
Conflict of Christianity 


WITH HEATHENISM. 
By DR. GERHARD UHLHORN. 


TRANSLATED BY 
PROF. EGBERT C. SMYTH and REV. C. J. H. ROPES, 


One Volume, Crown 8vo, $2.50. 


This volume describes with extraordinary vividness and spirit the 
religious and moral condition of the Pagan world, the rise and spread 
of Christianity, its conflict with heathenism, and its final victory. There 
is no work that portrays the heroic age of the ancient church with equal 
spirit, elegance, and incisive power. The author has made thorough and 
independent study both of the early Christian literature and also of the 
contemporary records of classic heathenism. 


CRIFIcAL NOTICES. 


‘It is easy to see why this volume is so highly esteemed. It is 
systematic, thorough, and concise. But its power is in the wide mental 
vision and well-balanced imagination of the author, which enable him to 
reconstruct the scenes of ancient history. An exceptional clearness and 
force mark his style.”—Boston Advertiser. 


‘‘One might read many books without obtaining more than a fraction 
of the profitable information here conveyed ; and he might search a long 
time before finding one which would so thoroughly fix his attention and 
command his interest.”—PAz/, S. S. Times. 


‘‘Dr. Uhlhorn has described the great conflict with the power of a 
master. His style is strong and attractive, his descriptions vivid and 
graphic, his illustrations highly colored, and his presentation of the subject 
earnest and effective."—Providence Fournal. 


‘*The work is marked for its broad humanitarian views, its learning, 
and the wide discretion in selecting from the great field the points of 
deepest interest.""—Chicago Inter-Ocean. 


‘‘This is one of those clear, strong, thorough-going books which are 
a scholar’s delight.”—Hartford Religious Herald, 


*,* For sale by all booksellers, or sent post-paid upon receipt of 
orice, by 


CHARI.FS SCRIBNER’S SONS, 
Nos, 743 AND 745 BROADWAY, NEW YorRK, 


AUTHORIZED AMERICAN EDITION. 


CHRIS TAN ANSE TURNS 


Essays on Ecclesiastical Subjects. 


By A. P. STANLEY, D.D., 
Late Dean of Westminster. 


One vol., crown 8vo, Library Edition, $2.50; Student’s Edition, 75c. 


The work includes chapters upon Baptism, the Eucharist, the Eucharist 
in the Early Church, Eucharistic Sacrifice, the Real Presence, the Body and 
Blood of Christ, Absolution, Ecclesiastical Vestments, Basilicas, the Pope, 
the Litany, and the Belief of the Early Christians. 


‘*' They have all an antiquarian, historical, and practical interest, and are 
treated in a very liberal and very attractive style. Dean Stanley is a genius 
as well as a scholar, and has a rare power of word painting. His History of 
the Fewish Church and of the Zastern Church are as interesting and enter- 
taining as a novel. He always seizes on the most salient points, and 
gives them an artistic finish. He avoids all pedantry of learning, and all 
tedious details.".—Dr. Schafi in The Critic. 


‘‘ No scholar of taste, no lover of the historic art, no fine antiquarian will 
read these essays without grateful emotions and manifold profit.'"— Boston 
Advertiser, 


DEAN STANLEY’S OTHER WORKS. 


The History of the Jewish Church. | The History of the Church of Scot- 
With maps and plans. land. 8vo, $1.50. 
Vol, I. From Abraham to Samuel. } The History of the Eastern Church. 
Ae HT. From Samuel to the Cap- } With an Introduction on the study of 
tivity. ! Ecclesiastical History. Crown 8vo, 
Vol. III. From the Captivity to the | $2.50. 
Christian Era. ' : Westminster Sermons. Sermons on 
Each 1 vol., crown, 8vo., per vol., $2.50. | special occasions preached in Westmin- 


Westminster Edition of the History ster Abbey. 1 vol., 8vo, $2.50. 


of the Jewish Church. Handsomely 
printed on superfine paper, and tastefully 
bound. Three vols, 8vo. (Sold in sets 
only.) $9.00. 


The Life and Correspondence of 
Thomas Arnold, D.D., late Head 
Master at Rugby School. 2 vals in one. 
Crown 8vo, $2.50. . 


*,* For Sale by all booksellers, or sent, post-paid, upon receipt of price, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS, PUBLISHERS, 


743 AND 745 BRoADWay, New York, 


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